Dreams Of The Desolation
by Kinkor the Knight
Summary: Sequel to "I Bring The Thunder." Alone in a vast wasteland, Hiccup and Toothless face off against grief, harsh climate, territorial dragons, and even stranger threats. Meanwhile, in a distant part of the world, Nestor fights for survival against enemies both human and inhuman.
1. Prologue

**Rights:** Dreamworks and such. Not me. Nope

**Previous Stories in the **_**Dragons: Champions**_** Series (In Order)**: Standing Against, Standing Between

I Bring The Thunder

**Note**: Hey, you know all those stories I've written before this one? If you haven't read them already, you should do that and come back later.

**Author's Notes **(so many notes):

Let me answer the question that I'm sure a few of you have: why is this story shorter? Why is it not part of the last story? Well, the reason is a philosophical one.

When you're trying to get your work published, you have to deal with size limitations. Only the most successful authors can get away with 1000-page epics. For the rest of us, it's "cut this" and "reduce that" and "that ending sucks." For any writer, it's part of the challenge of the profession, but it's still hard to convey your point in an entertaining fashion with only 4000 words to spare (if you want to write a boring, pedestrian story that comes off like a high school English paper, it's not so difficult). So the nice thing about fan fiction is that the only real limitation is your personal assessment on the length it takes you to tell your story.

That said, a good story still needs to be efficient. It should be long enough to do the job and not go off on useless subplots that ultimately go nowhere. Mind you, that can be a subjective call. One writer's useless subplot is another writer's description of character growth. For me, I felt that this new story needed to deal with the direct and personal aftermath of I Bring The Thunder instead of the central focus of the _Champions_ series. So instead of attaching it to the final story, it gets its own presentation.

That said… again… there are plot developments and characters introduced here that tie into the final story. So you can't skip over this one and read the last installment without scratching your head and going "Whaa…?" So, yeah, read it.

A few odds and ends before we begin:

Check my profile for what is considered canon and non-canon in my series.

There will be characters here from the _Dragons: Riders of Berk_ TV series, but you shouldn't have to watch the show to understand who there are. If a character's background is a mystery to you, rest assured that they won't stay a mystery for long.

This series features a lot of original characters (OCs), but you can never be sure who'll show up from here on out.

That's it. As always, hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Prologue**

_Dad doesn't talk about my mother much… or at all._

_Bear in mind, most Vikings are a feisty bunch who think a story doesn't end well if the hero doesn't die in the end, even in children's tales, like the story of how Mudpie the Incorrigible met his fate during an epic game of tag. We have a Great Hall to honor the dead, our chief professions revolve around flirting with death on a daily basis, and we choose to live in the most inhospitable regions on the planet. Death is not taboo to us._

_So it has always bothered me that Dad never talks about what happened to Mom. The only one of two times he ever discussed it with me was the day he told me she was never coming back. That one night many years ago, when I was maybe three or four years. Dad and Mom had gone on some dragon-hunting mission out on the sea and I was with a few other kids being watched over by one of the other village mothers. Dad walks into our home wearing one of the most solemn faces I've ever seen him wear. He asks everyone else to leave and then sits me down for probably the shortest and saddest conversation we've ever had. I know I cried a lot over the news, but I don't think Dad shed one tear. I don't think he ever has. It's no accident that he earned his name Stoick that day._

_Nobody else would talk about it, either. Not our place to do so, they'd tell me over and over. No Viking funeral or anything, because she was lost out on the ocean, or so I believed… and still believe. Yeah, even today, I still don't know what happened to her, and I've given up trying to find out. I suspect it would only lead to more sorrow at this point._

_I did get courageous enough to ask Dad about it many years later, that second time I mentioned. We had just come home from repealing the latest dragon raid on Berk, Dad cleaning his weapons and me cleaning myself off after nearly getting trampled by a stampede of terrified sheep (long story). Maybe it was my blood being too pumped that night for me to think clearly, but I went and asked him about mother, why he never talks about her and why he keeps the details of the terrible night to himself. I expected a lot of different reactions from him ranging from angry to really angry to really, really angry, mostly because everyone else did their best to dodge around the issue and that usually meant they didn't want a warhammer to the nose for discussing the matter._

_Instead, he calmly sits me down again, much like we did all those years ago, and he tells me in a gentle tone that he doesn't talk about it because he doesn't want to dwell on how things ended with her. He prefers to dwell on her deeds, her tenacity, and her love. The Valkyries carry the best of us off to a better place and the rest of us… make do, but we all face the same end, eventually. He chooses to not focus on the end, but on the journey he shared with her for a time. _

_Despite his namesake, my dad isn't as stoic as he claims. That night, right after he got done with his speech, something about his face changed. He looked… lost, like he didn't actually believe what he was saying, and was uttering it for my benefit. That's when he added a piece of wisdom that I've never forgotten, probably will never forget:_

"_For all I've just said, son, there's a lesson in life we all must learn, and it's a lesson learned hard. There will be a point in time where no matter how good a Viking you are, no matter how many enemies you've slain or how many Vikings shout your name in cheer or even how favored you are by Odin himself, you'll realize you're helpless to avoid one true certainty in life: that someday, you're going to lose someone you care about, and it's going to hurt. A lot."_

_I thought I understood what he meant. I thought I already knew what loss meant._

_But I didn't really understand. Not until now._


	2. Flying Too High

**Chapter One: Flying Too High**

The cave was barely more than a crude semi-circle in the rock, recessed enough to preserve those seeking safety from baking sunlight and brutal winds but too shallow to offer sanctuary from predators and interlopers. No outcroppings or holes to squeeze behind or into. Thankfully, the environment was lacking in the predator department, though it was also lacking in the anything-edible department as well. Sand and sand and more sand, the color of decaying steel, some loose and flowing, some compact and stable, with only small smatterings of rock breaking up the monotony.

The floor of the cave had one spoil: a natural spring slowly bubbling up from the giving earth, nothing more grand than a puddle on the ground, a holdover from the great floods or rains that had shaped this desolate land so long ago. Toothless had lapped it up greedily upon finding the cave, already parched and overheated in this new land. He was a cold-weather dragon and he found the hot air and sand-whipping wind quite displeasing. Perhaps night would make the atmosphere tolerable, but for now hunkering down in the cave to ride out the day was the best option.

He also needed time to heal up. His right rear leg was tender when weight was applied, and he had numerous scratches on his belly from two consecutive bad landings. Not as bad as the time he lost half his tail rudder, but he was far from fighting shape. A few days of rest would mend him nicely, but only if he had a healthy supply of fish to keep his strength up. Toothless could already tell that this land bore no fish.

Hungry as he was and disappointed that the puddle had nothing living in it that he could snack on, Toothless kept a vigil around his rider, who was still lying on his side in the sand and staring out at the other crude rock formations near the entrance of their cave. He lived; Toothless was certain of that. But his eyes bore no life or luster, his arms hugging his chest and his legs drawn up in a near-fetal position. He'd managed to get his riding armor off, throwing it dispassionately to the side as if it was a sack of garbage, but that was the one action he'd taken in hours. He hadn't even approached the puddle to drink of it.

Toothless had gently nudged Hiccup a few times to get his attention, even going so far as to carefully grab Hiccup's leg in his mouth and drag him toward the puddle. The boy had to be thirsty, he needed to keep his strength up so that he could get to fixing the dragon's saddle and rudder and then get them away from this horrid land. But with surprising ferocity, Hiccup managed to yank his leg out of the dragon's mouth and quietly ordered the dragon to leave him be, he was okay, he wasn't thirsty at all.

Toothless didn't believe one word of it.

The dragon understood Hiccup's behavior, instinctively if not intellectually. Wounded animals, dragons included, often found dark places to mend their injuries, hoping that time would fix their bodies before hunger, thirst, or an opportunistic adversary claimed them. Hiccup was physically fine; his wound was within his mind, and thus much more serious.

The dragon knew they both needed sustenance, but the surrounding land had nothing to offer. He didn't like dining on rodents or birds, but they were palatable in a pinch. Yet neither a single bird song, nor one random scurry of rodent feet, came to the dragon's ears. Flight was required for finding food. Flight was required for survival.

Even if he couldn't fly, he could still perform very short glide-jumps. He could travel some distance that way, even though it would exhaust him quickly. It would be painful with his twisted leg, but it could be done. But that meant leaving Hiccup alone for a long time. Too long a time in such a barren land… and especially with Hiccup in the state he was in.

There was no alternative, certainly not one that the loyal dragon thought of entertaining. He had to wait with Hiccup, wait for his rider to come alive again.

So Toothless sat and waited, alternating between watching the wind sandblast the world outside the cave and watching his rider for positive signs of life. The only one he saw that first long day in the desert was to see Hiccup's eyes close shortly before sundown, the boy mercifully going to sleep. Perhaps slumber would make some difference… any difference.

Night came swiftly once the sun had departed, the desert heat yielding to its polar opposite. The stars were thick and illuminating, tempting the Night Fury with their incessant twinkle. Toothless knew he could be using the night and its cooler air to forage for food, but he still couldn't bring himself to leave Hiccup alone. Toothless was used to this kind of harsh survival situation, having spent a fair leg of his life as a solitary nocturnal hunter, but not Hiccup. He wasn't in the best of hunting shape, either. He felt drained, weary from his numerous crash-related bruises. He had not allowed himself sleep while standing watch around Hiccup, but he couldn't stay awake indefinitely.

He approached Hiccup and surrounded the boy's still form with his larger body, positioning his tail rudder as an impromptu blanket for the boy, sharing his body heat with his beloved rider. Hiccup rustled in his sleep, grabbing Toothless's tail and pulling it closer, snuggling in for warmth. Toothless felt a smidgen of contentment. He could not heal his rider's wounds, and it pained him that he could do so little, but he could keep him company until Hiccup found the strength to rise once more.

The winds howled their continuous cries outside the cave as Toothless tried to sleep with one eye propped open, waiting to see if the nightlife was as dead as the daylife. Eventually the tedium of uneventful guard duty overwhelmed his fears of any lurking dangers, and he joined Hiccup in true slumber, hoping the morning brought more than just heat and heartache.

* * *

For Hiccup, that one terrible day could be summed up in one word: blurry.

He remembered the battle in the Repository. The frantic insanity of flying half-metal dragons, flashing myssteel weapons, lava columns that rose up like living tentacles - hard to forget all that.

He remembered how things had gone from desperate to triumphant to desperate to horrific in very short order. One minute, Hiccup and his friends had the Alchemist on the ropes. The next minute, the ceiling was collapsing on their heads, the ocean pouring in like the world's biggest waterfall. A frantic bid for survival, a desperate attempt by a valued friend to save the day, and Astrid…

Astrid was gone.

It kept coming back to him, replaying in his mind like a band of minstrels paid to reenact the saddest part of a tragic play over and over. Astrid, hanging by a sliver of broken bridge with the Alchemist grappled to her legs. A widening waterfall poised to break open and wash her away. Hiccup, desperately reaching out to her, his arms too short and the path too narrow to allow him to get close enough.

The final look in her eyes, as if she had known how this would end.

Then the terrible moment when the girl he loved fell away, along with everything that might have been, disappearing into the soup-thick steam cloud below.

That's where his memory stopped. After that, things got hazy and confusing, almost blessedly so. He had experienced the surreal trip through time and space, weird yellow flickering things surrounding him and carrying him through a bright realm of nothingness. But it was as fleeting as a dream and less substantial. He didn't remember the point where he felt corporal again. He must have passed out during the teleportation – that was the word for it, a magic word that you heard in fairy tales but never in real life. He had awakened briefly on top of Toothless, the dragon gingerly carrying him through blinding winds, before an unnatural fatigue drew him back into unconsciousness.

He eventually fought off the fatigue and became aware of his new and ugly surroundings. He assumed it was Toothless responsible for tucking him in a cave. He knew Toothless was watching over him as he always did when things went sour. He knew they were in a bad place, knew Toothless needed him for something rudder-related, knew his friends were all missing, knew that Nestor _shouldn't_ be missing…

But it was all just… knowing. It was his conscious mind trying to butt in on his pain, trying to get him past that one horrible moment in time when Astrid fell. All that day, it tried and tried and tried. Every time a morsel of reality filtered in, that one horrible moment flicked it away. His mind couldn't shake the agonizing memory.

Astrid was gone.

It was unbelievable… but it had happened.

Stuck in an endless cycle of grief, a second Red Death could've stopped in for a visit and he wouldn't have reacted. Worse, he might have asked it if it wanted seasoning with its Hiccup-sized meal.

Despite a young life with more than its fair share of lonely stretches, Hiccup felt more alone than anytime prior. Yes, Toothless was there, watching over him. Toothless, always trying to help. Toothless, a comfort in the darkest of times… but not this time. The void that occupied Hiccup's soul was not dragon-shaped. For once, Toothless's warm and loving presence could do nothing for him.

As the long, agonizing hours rolled on and the daylight began to fade from this corner of the world, his conscious mind decided to end the ordeal for now, retreat from the losing battle, and mercifully put him out. Hiccup didn't fight it. What did being awake do for him, anyway?

No dreams came to him that night. A mercy, as none of them would have done him any favors.

* * *

The faint bluish glow of the dawning sky roused him a good twelve hours later. The gentle light managed to pierce the dark morass he'd fallen into, prompting him to remember that, for better or for worse, he was still alive, and that life had its requirements.

He resisted waking up at first, hoping that this might all be a bad dream. Maybe if he stayed asleep a little longer, the bad dream would change to something like showing up to a dragon training session in his underpants. That would be tolerable.

But the painful scorched feeling down his throat ruined that idea. He felt too miserable to be dreaming. And when he opened his eyes to survey the world, he found the same depressing landscape and sorry-looking cave as when he fell asleep.

Hiccup pushed aside the tail-for-a-blanket that Toothless had draped over him and sat up enough to stretch his sore limbs. His body complained about the lack of movement, and now his stomach was complaining about the lack of food. Even better, his throat felt like a dragon had launched a fireball down it. The body had its requirements, and it couldn't wait for his mental outlook to improve.

His buddy's warm presence had softened the night for him, and he felt somewhat better in body if not in spirit. He gave his sleeping friend's scaly side a grateful rubbing, a sliver of light slipping into his shadowed soul.

Good ol' Toothless. The dragon hadn't left his side the whole time. He continued to slumber, his breathing easy and comforting to listen to, and Hiccup patted him lightly on the head. Toothless stirred slightly at his touch but didn't rouse, though his paws twitched occasionally in that rustling-in-your-sleep kind of way. Hopefully he was dreaming about something pleasant, like an early morning flight through the crisp air above Berk or dive-bombing a school of cod.

A pang of guilt crept in. Good ol' Toothless, indeed. The dragon's rudder was still out of whack. He couldn't forage for himself. The poor guy was probably starving.

Still, matters of thirst came first. Hiccup got up and went to the spring-fed puddle, cupping his hands and drinking until his throat felt moist again. The water had a gritty taste, like it had a little too much rock in it, but it did the trick. He was surprised how much a slated thirst could affect his mood. Gods, how stupid he'd been not to drink anything, especially in this dry climate.

Quenched for now, Hiccup tried walking around to get the kinks out of his bones, but found a new kink instead. His spring-loaded false foot made scraping, grinding sounds with each step, and didn't bounce as efficiently as it should. Sand in the springs, most likely. A good cleaning would fix that… and how far away was he from the nearest smithy, exactly?

Toothless's saddle had a special pouch that contained a small selection of blacksmith tools, mostly tiny wrenches and a curved bar used for prying. You never knew when a rudder breakdown could occur, after all. Good for short repair jobs and jury-rigging, but not much else.

He looked out at the desert and sighed. As fixes went, he was in a pretty big one, but standing around and feeling sorry for himself wasn't going to undo the fix. He'd done too much of that already.

Because the pouch was situated underneath the saddle, there was no way to get to it without jostling Toothless here and there to get off the saddle. By the time Hiccup had retrieved the pouch and was placing its contents on a nearby stone for easy access, he became aware of Toothless's big reptilian eyes staring at him, sleepy and yet keenly scrutinizing his rider. No boisterous good-morning dragon greeting this time, only a tired expression conveying unmistakable concern.

Hiccup found himself staring back at his dragon pal, the inertia of his bout of problem solving arrested by those caring eyes. He wanted to talk, say to Toothless that he was okay now and that he didn't have to worry and stand guard anymore, that he was past the worst of his misery. But he said nothing of the sort. He had a bond with Toothless that went deeper than rider and mount, or master and pet. Years of relying on each other in the sky and in life did that kind of thing. Toothless knew his moods, and he knew when he was lying. There was no point saying he was okay when it was the furthest thing from the truth.

To prove it, his thoughts quickly switched to a darker tone. Robbed of the distraction that fixing Toothless's rudder had brought, that old cycle of loss returned, biting at his will once more. But this time, his buddy's steadfast loyalty, apparent in those dragon eyes of his, made it less overwhelming. As much as it hurt, Hiccup couldn't deny the world once more. There was more than just his messed-up life at stake.

Hiccup placed the tools in his hands down by the others, crept in close to Toothless's neck, and wrapped his arms around the black dragon. Toothless leaned his head into the hug as Hiccup closed his eyes and felt the sobs well up inside him. He squeezed harder as the sobs became vocal, his tears sliding off his face and onto the dragon's scales. Toothless bore the young man's grief patiently and lovingly, letting the boy openly grieve for as long as needed.

It took the better part of the morning.

* * *

Two pieces of good news were found as Hiccup restarted his repairs. One was a rogue piece of jerky that had made its way into the tool pouch on Toothless's saddle. Covered in lint, stuck with sand or dirt or something else best left unidentified, Hiccup cleaned it off as best he could and offered it to the dragon. Toothless refused it at first, a mysterious reaction as he liked the stuff well enough to eat it, until Hiccup realized the dragon wanted him to have it instead. They compromised by splitting it in half, which barely made it a morsel for the dragon but helped settled Hiccup's stomach for now.

The second piece of good fortune was that Toothless didn't have any serious injuries from the battle in the Repository. Scrapes, bruising, lost scales, and a rear leg that Toothless growled at Hiccup not to touch, but nothing worse. Not a surprising outcome, considering that dragons were generally resilient to fall-based impacts that might break every bone in a human body, but Hiccup still instinctively fretted over Toothless's health after every crash and bad touchdown. Considering that the two of them had replacement body parts from their previous adventures together, Hiccup didn't think his concern was excessive.

"I have this story that keeps running through my head. Something Nestor told me a few weeks ago," Hiccup mused, working free the rudder from the dragon's tail with his mini-crowbar. He had taken to talking constantly while he worked his smithing magic on the dragon's rudder, not so much to entertain Toothless but to keep his thoughts from going places he didn't want them to go.

The dragon kept his eyes on the dreary horizon outside the cavern, the sun beating down on the landscape and heating up the arid ground. The wind had picked up as well, though their cave sheltered them from the majority of it. There didn't seem to be anything to guard against in this forsaken land, but Toothless was determined to stay on guard anyway. At least they wouldn't be sticking around for too long, as the rudder's damage was largely superficial and within Hiccup's power to address out in the field. They should be in a flyable state by sundown.

"Nestor likes his Greek mythology," continued Hiccup as he worked to clear the latest jam in the linkup. "This myth was about an inventor who was trying to escape from an unpleasant king and created a set of wings made of feathers and wax. Well, actually, he created two sets, one for him and one for his son. I forget the dad's name, Daedul-something, but the kid's name was Icarus and he was one of those types that never listened to his dad. I can relate to that. Anyway, the inventor tells Icarus that they're flying over the sea to safety but that he shouldn't fly too high or else the sun will melt the wax on his wings and he'll fall to his death. Guess the first thing Icarus does after that warning."

Naturally, Toothless didn't make any guesses. "After Nestor told me that story, my first thought was that Icarus should've gone with dragons instead of feathers and wax. But I got what he was saying. Heed the warnings of your elders and don't fly higher than you can handle. I thought it was a silly lesson. If I'd played it safe all my life, you and I wouldn't be having this one-sided conversation. Yet… yet here I am, in the middle of some blighted wasteland, with no idea what happened to the others… to Nestor… to…"

He forced himself to swerve his thoughts away from its dangerous course, his hands ceasing their activity as he fought off this new wave of despair. The analogy – keep to the analogy. "Nestor warned me about this life, and I didn't listen. Is this what happens when you're flying too high for too long? Something finally brings you down to earth again? Did I earn this fate?"

Toothless looked back at him with renewed concern, hearing the catch in his voice as he talked. The strength of the dragon's gaze solidified Hiccup's mood again, forcing his hands back to their important repair job. "Remind me not to listen to anymore Greek myths. Overall, they're really depressing."

Navigating around the despair-filled pitfalls in his mind was proving an arduous task. If it wasn't Astrid, it was Nestor. In his heart, he figured Arc and the others left behind in the Repository had made it to safety. Arc would have found a way to get them out – he was chalk full of Hyperion cleverness and persistence, after all. But Nestor had come through the mystical thingy with him and Toothless, that much he remembered. Nestor had saved them both from a watery grave… and had disappeared into nothingness for his troubles.

He didn't believe it, though. He had no reason not to, but he still couldn't believe it. Hiccup had too much to deal with, too much sorrow already. Another dead friend was too much to take on right now.

He lapsed into silence while he finished the repair work. Talking was not helping him get through this.

A good hour later, the rudder had been reassembled and the linkup repaired to a workable state. It wasn't pretty, with several kinks in the metal that might cause problems after prolonged use, but it might just get them to civilization and a proper blacksmith shop.

"Okay, bud, let's see if it works," he told Toothless. The dragon quickly stood up and flexed his tail rudder, which creaked more than usual but responded to Toothless's tail movements as it should. Then the dragon moved out of the cave and into the sunlight, the harsh glare making his bluish-black scales stand out like tar on a newly repaired roof.

Using the brisk wind to aid his liftoff, Toothless carefully took to the air solo and gave the rudder a thorough testing, banking left and right, spinning a few times, roosting for a moment on top of one of the finger-like rock formations nearby, climbing and diving in rapid succession like a boat on a choppy sea. The dragon was clearly happy to be back in the air, though his enthusiasm wasn't as unbridled as usual. He didn't take to the maneuvering with much gusto.

Hiccup sighed in relief as he watched his friend put the rudder through its paces. One problem out of the way. Now he just had to figure out where they were and where they were going.

Basic direction was a no-brainer. With the help of the sun, he figured he had north more or less figured out. The only reason he had for going north was that Berk was always in a northern direction no matter where he went. It helped to live so close to the Arctic Circle that on the worst winter days you could spit and have the spittle freeze in midair. So when in doubt, head north.

Of course, north could also lead to more deserts instead, and with no guarantees of another easily accessible watering hole.

The other problem was navigation. Traveling during the day would make them dry up and crumble into dragon-scented dust. Flying at nighttime wasn't a problem for Night Furies, but the stars here were of a different configuration than in the northern skies. Hiccup was still working on his celestial navigation back home – he'd be completely lost here.

So travel during the day and get roasted. Travel during the night and get lost. Decisions.

Hiccup kept his concerns to himself as Toothless landed, the dragon wincing as he touched down on his bad leg but happy enough to walk over to Hiccup and commence the nuzzling and licking. Toothless now thought they were free to leave this place. Hiccup was not so convinced any longer.

Regardless, Hiccup planned on using the sunset and twilight time for a bit of recon around the area. An hour out, an hour back. That should give him a better picture of their situation. His grumbling stomach was trying to rush him on this, but it wouldn't pay to fly off to find food and then die of thirst a few days later instead.

With a few hours left to sundown, Hiccup spent his time cleaning his false leg as best he could, packing gear, checking over his riding armor (and debating if he was going to bother to take it with him at all), trying to find a way to store some water for travel (and finding none – he left most of his supply containers back on Captain Linebreaker's vessel), and finally creating a game of stone throwing where he threw a rock and then tried to get all subsequent rocks to land right by it.

Toothless napped in the shelter of the cave.

Hiccup eventually did the same when he ran out of throwable stones, using his dragon buddy for a pillow. He wasn't all that tired, but sleep seemed like a better option than staying awake with nothing to do. Because that led to thinking… and that was the one thing he didn't want to do.

A dream did come to him, but it was nothing that he expected to see. He had assumed that his nights would be as troubled as his days, his dreams full of tormenting images of Astrid, happy moments to make his waking hours worse or sad moments to keep his mood consistent all the time.

But his dreams went a different direction entirely.

* * *

He was resting exactly as he had been when he drifted off, pressed against Toothless's warm side while facing the cavern entrance. He thought he was awake initially, as nothing dream-like was occurring outside of the sunlight being blurry and distorted, like it was in his face and blinding him despite the cover offered by the cave. The world was little off, the wind howling as before but somehow moving the sands along slower. The thin stands of clouds in the air were moving the opposite direction of the breeze, and the nearby rock-fingers were thicker and longer than Hiccup remembered.

None of it _felt_ different. It was a dream – everything made its own type of sense in a dream. Yet Hiccup could tell that this wasn't the real world, but a not-quite-right copy of it. The sand was the wrong color, more tan that rust. Toothless breathed the wrong way, heavier than normal. He couldn't feel the dry heat of the air or the rocky bed beneath him. A hundred little details that combined into an incomplete picture of reality.

That's not what ultimately disturbed him. That honor went to the woman walking along the cave entrance.

Much like the dream, he wasn't certain she was a woman, or more precisely a girl. She seemed perfectly human, a shapely feminine figure clad head to toe in a black robe, her hair hidden beneath the robe's hood. Her face was young and striking, a few years younger than Hiccup, her skin very dark and blemish-free. She walked as if she had all the time in the world, the fabric of her robe billowing behind her in defiance of the wind that was blowing at her back, her boots marking the sand as she walked.

He thought to call out to her, ask who she was and all that, yet he couldn't summon the will to do so. She didn't look his way at all. She strolled on by as if hypnotized or unable to see the cavern or anything inside the cavern. She walked on as if firm in her destination and certain of what fate awaited her when she got there.

He watched as she passed the entrance and left his sight, and he felt a very strong compulsion to pursue her. She had walked this way for a reason, and the reason involved…

The jostling that knocked Hiccup from the dream made him sit up and yell out, "I'm up, I'm up, I'll get the bucket of water," which only made sense if you knew anything about Hiccup's life pre-Toothless. Hiccup immediately got his bearings and found the real world a lot dimmer but a whole lot more stable than the false one he'd just dreamed, the sun almost below the horizon and casting the land in a red-orange haze.

That dream… one of the oddest he'd had in his life, even beating out the time he dreamt he was a walrus attempting to recite poetry to a crowd of excited gnomes. Well, perhaps not as odd, but far more intense. Even more so, he remembered the details of the dream very well, right down to the discolored sand and napping Night Fury, unlike the nervous Night Fury he had on his hands.

Yes, the reason why he'd been jostled awake wasn't a good one. Toothless was on his feet, his back arched and a low growl rumbling in his throat. His defensive posture was aimed at the two other dragons parked outside the cave, both of them staring back at Toothless and Hiccup with threatening postures of their own.

While Hiccup knew more about dragons than ninety percent of the world's sages combined, there were some holes in his knowledge base. Besides the usual Nadders, Zipplebacks, Gronckles, Nightmares, and Terrible Terrors that lived in and around Berk, Hiccup had had encounters with several exotic species over the last two years, and first-time encounters were never peaceful affairs. Every dragon had their likes and dislikes, their talents and weak points. And while this wasn't the first time he'd seen a Skrill in the flesh instead of reading about it in the Dragon Manual, it was the first time he was close enough to sneeze at one.

Both of the Skrills blocking off the cave exit had narrow torsos the color of charcoal, leading to angular mouths that had tiny pale eyes at the very tip and a small hooked horn above their nostrils. Two rear legs were positioned halfway down the body, the torso ending in a massive tail with no rudder, only long spikes all along the spine. No forward sets of legs were apparent, so the dragons used their set of bat-like wings as balancing limbs on the ground. Spikes adorned parts of the wing and the entirety of the Skrills' back, lined theirs belly in linear fashion, and formed a mane of rear-facing stabby protrusions where the head met the neck. A difficult creature to envision a rider on, even if its hide didn't crackle with little blue bolts of wriggling electrical current that leapt from spine to spine. The Skrill one on the left had slightly grayer coloration, but otherwise the two spiky dragons were very similar in size and profile.

That was the thing about Skrills – they were largely an unknown species. Berk had never actually suffered a raid from a Skrill. The few Viking-Skrill encounters recorded or passed along were by Vikings out at sea in the middle of tempest-class thunderstorms. Tales told over the centuries spoke of Skrills flying amidst the powerful lightning blasts, appearing and disappearing like phantoms in the torchlight, riding the lightning to unknown destinations. There was much debate about whether a Skrill had ever attacked a Viking, considering that one only met them in storms and storms were known to cause confusion and disorientation when they weren't frying you with lightning or drowning you in the waves. Skrills didn't socialize with other dragons and they were _definitely_ not friendly with humans.

Under better circumstances, this might have been a banner day for Hiccup. Getting to know an elusive dragon species lent itself to excitement and adventure. But these two were not in the getting-to-know-you mode. Their long mouths were wide open, giving him a great view of their dagger-sharp teeth and pink tongues. Raspy hisses came from their throats, their wings rising into the air as they balanced on their legs, raising and lowering their necks in a rhythmic pattern.

A warning dance. Hiccup recognized the behavior from other dragons. It's what a dragon did when it felt threatened but wasn't ready to attack. Unfortunately, it quickly became an attack if the threat didn't move off almost immediately. Hiccup and Toothless were the threat.

"Take it easy, bud," Hiccup whispered to Toothless. The dragon kept up his defense posture, bearing his teeth to warn the Skrills of a serious hurting should this get hostile. Hiccup prayed that wasn't going to happen. Despite being "lightning dragons," Skrills didn't project lightning in their attacks. Only Thunderchilds had that distinction. Skrills shot white fire in long continuous bursts, and the two Skrills before them could easily blacken the entire cavern. Toothless would be okay, being fireproof, but not so much Hiccup.

"Is this their nest or something?" muttered Hiccup, looking for signs of previous habitation. No obvious evidence of dragon nesting, no old droppings or rearranged debris for bedding. There was the spring, though. Maybe this was their watering hole.

"Bud, let's try to clear out," suggested Hiccup. "They may just want the water."

Toothless ceased his growling, looked back at Hiccup with a wary eye, and then waggled an affirmative. Hiccup pointed to the right side of the cavern, where there was just enough room to squeeze by the Skrills.

The dragon took one step and the Skrills instantly reared up again on their legs, their hissing intensifying. Their bobbing heads became more rapid, their eyes narrowing. Hiccup grabbed Toothless by the saddle to prompt him to halt. Obviously, moving towards the Skrills was considered a provocation. Problem was, there was no way to get out of the cave without doing so. The Skrill had them fenced in.

Hiccup glanced backwards. The cave was too shallow for retreat. There was no way to get out without going through the Skrills. He gave the agitated dragons a dopey, apologetic look. "Uh… didn't mean to intrude on your favorite hole. If you guys back off, we'll leave right now and…"

The hissing grew louder still. Toothless resumed his growling as the Skrills' posturing grew more threatening. For whatever reason, they weren't going to allow them to go. They were too caught up in their instinctual aggression to back down.

This was going to get ugly any second.

"Okay, new plan," said Hiccup into Toothless's ear, slowly crawling onto the saddle. He didn't have his harness on yet, but he wasn't about to go fetch it. He'd just have to do a lot of clinging.

"When I say now, we rush. Go right between them. Maybe we'll take them by surprise and get past them before they can…"

Before Hiccup could finish relaying his risky plan, a third Skrill thumped down from out of nowhere, in the very spot Hiccup had aimed for, just behind the first two and cutting off the proposed escape route.

"That just figures," said Hiccup dejectedly.

This new one didn't join in the warning dance, however. It hissed, but the hiss was of a different octave and inflection than the others. The other Skrills ceased their warning dance and faced the newcomer, a new variety of hissing erupting from their gaping mouths. The newcomer hissed back in a strange tone, prompting more hisses from the others. It grew into a hissing choir, where Hiccup couldn't tell which dragon hissed what.

_This has to be some kind of conversation,_ mused Hiccup. _Hopefully not about which dragon gets the choicest bits off the human._

This went on for many long moments until the general hissing came to an end. The first two Skrills closed their mouths, bobbed their heads up and down once in a slow acquiescing manner, and then launched themselves into the air, disappearing out of sight. Their shadows sped along the ground to the east until they shrunk into the sand dunes and faded from view.

Hiccup sat atop Toothless, baffled and relieved all at once. Toothless ceased his growling and gave the newest Skrill his full attention, though his posture didn't relax. This Skrill watched the others fly away before turning his focus on Hiccup, moving forward a few steps in a casual fashion. Its scales were more greenish-black than the others, like a forest in shadow. It had an odd expression on its face. Rather than threatened, it seemed almost curious.

Not knowing if this Skrill's intentions were any less unfriendly than the others, Hiccup almost ordered Toothless to go for the sky. Having one Skrill to deal with instead of two dramatically improved their odds of survival. Yet his gut was telling him to stay put. He was having a dose of déjà vu and he suspected the next few seconds would cast everything in a new light.

He wasn't disappointed.

"Ze Dragon Rider, I presume," the Skrill spoke.


	3. Punishment

**Chapter Two: Punishment**

Total darkness.

Not mostly dark with a little starlight thrown in. Not dark-because-you've-been-out-in-the-sun-and-your-eyes-have-to-adjust. This was absolute darkness, the kind of darkness that makes you think you went blind in your sleep and will never see another shade of red or rolling hilltop or pretty face ever again.

Beyond the twitching aches in his back and the stale odor engulfing his nose, this was Nestor's main observation upon waking up. This all-encompassing darkness instilled a primeval impulse in him, driving him to stand up even with his leg muscles cramping painfully. In his line of work, total darkness was never a place you wanted to be. Total darkness hid all the bad things… like low-lying ceilings.

That was the first thing he encountered as he stood up, his head banging hard against said low-lying ceiling a scant three feet above him. His trusty barrier field flashed and saved him from an embarrassing head wound, but the surprise impact caused him to halt further movement. Using his embarrassment to force himself calm, he took in a few deep breaths full of stagnant air and sat back down. Sitting was safer while he thought out his situation. The terrain was clearly not friendly.

The brief orange-tinged flash generated by his head meeting rock had lit up the cave much like an failed attempt at lighting a torch with flint and steel could illuminate your surroundings for a split-second. A terribly obvious idea came to Nestor, and despite already receiving a big blow seconds earlier, he gave his forehead a good smack anyway. He did have his own supernatural light source to draw upon. He might have tried that first.

He channeled some of his barrier field to his left hand and held it out like he was carrying a oil lamp. Soft light dispelled the deep darkness and outlined the closest features of his unknown location. It was a cave for sure, hard bumpy stone all around him, and he was at the bottom of a steep incline, cradled in the dip between the incline and the cavern wall. The ground felt coarse under his exploring hands, but not jagged or sharp. Perfectly climbable, even to those poor souls not gifted with magic. However, rock climbing was not the first thing that came to Nestor's mind. That honor went to the unhappy observation that he appeared to be absent one metal-footed friend and one Night Fury.

"HICCUP?" His yell came back at him almost immediately. He stopped to listen for a moment, hoping to detect any sound other than his own breathing. Dripping water, whistling air currents, the scraping of bug legs from a beetle or roach – anything that suggested a sign of life other than his. He'd been in enough caves during his not-quite-glorious career as Arc's warrior protégée to know that cavern life generally endured where there was air and water and egress.

His ears didn't give him any hope. He could hear nothing beyond his fading echo.

"TOOTHLESS?" Same result as before. He yelled out both their names over and over, pausing to give time for a reply. None ever came.

They weren't here. There were also no signs of Hiccup or the black dragon, no loose scales scattered on the ground or fallen equipment from Hiccup's saddle. Nestor's thoughts went to Qiao's cautionary instructions on the T-Node, how using it was like an archer launching an arrow into the air with a rope tied to its end, the other part of the rope anchored to a stake on the ground. The arrow would land somewhere around the tethered location, but that's as accurate as it got.

The ceiling above him, a curved wall with knots of bulging rock sticking out in unattractive ways, rose with the inclined floor in a parallel manner. The cavern climbed for dozens of feet until it leveled off to a flat spot beyond Nestor's sight. He must have slid or fallen down the incline while he was unconscious, saved from a fatal plunge by his barrier field. It was possible that Hiccup and Toothless were up in the higher sections of the cave. It was also possible they weren't even in the cave.

It was also _also_ possible they had teleported into the very rock itself.

Nestor pushed away the dire thought. He couldn't afford to get pessimistic right now. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but the prickliness of his throat and the emptiness of his stomach gnawed at him. There was also a heaviness in the air that bothered him, like he had invaded a place untouched by any living thing in a very long time.

There was only one direction to go – up the incline. He might as well get started.

On his hands and knees, Nestor clung to the abrasive incline and slowly crawled up its surface, using his barrier field to dig his hands and feet into the rock face wherever the stone grew slick or smooth. There was no wetness in the cave – even the air felt waterless, leeched of every drop of moisture – but the cave had to have seen its share of rain or waterfalls in the past because the rock had been worn down by _something_.

Nestor had to inch his way up at times, pushing his hands hard against the rock when no handhold manifested, using his enhanced strength to carrying himself up one hand at a time. A quarter of the way up, he encountered an extremely smooth spot that allow him no purchase whatsoever, his boots slipping when he tried to move to the side to find a better path. He failed to catch himself and went bumping and thumping back down to the bottom, crashing into the wall and brightening up the cave with his field once again. Nestor groaned in frustration but kept the lamentations brief before returning to the incline.

The second time he slipped was at the three-quarters mark. Having found a rockier section of the incline that granted more handholds, Nestor thought he had gotten past the worst of the climb and made the mistake of rushing his movements. He overextended his right arm and found another slippery spot, mistaking it for a firmer hold in the poor light. His boots lost their footing and he began to slide down. This time, he planted both hands and both feet firmly on the stone and pressed against it with every jolt of power his field could furnish. He skidded to a halt after a dozen feet, right next to a helpful set of handholds. After that, he paid more attention to the nuances of climbing stone and avoided further sliding episodes.

He gained the top of the incline not long after, carefully pulling his sore body unto the level ground and promising himself that he would never take up spelunking as a hobby. He briefly rolled onto his back to catch his breath, relieved to see that the ceiling had risen past the three-foot limit of the incline, allowing him to stand upright. Upon doing so, Nestor cast his arm around and took in the ominous contours of the cavern. It wasn't what he saw, but rather what he _didn't_ see, that filled him with dread.

There was a level path that went on another thirty feet at best, flanked by steep inclines on the right and left, inclines that promised fast rides and quick stops for any missteps. The path had some semblance of human engineering, with stepping-stones chiseled out of the cavern floor that resembled crude ovals. Time had wrecked most of them, but the impression of ancient habitation was there. The end of the path went right up to the cavern wall, the makings of a carved exit ruined by a serious cave-in. Tons of rock had fallen across the exit in great heaping piles, utterly blocking off escape as well as any air flow.

As before, no signs of Hiccup or Toothless. For their sakes, he was starting to be thankful. For _his_ sake, not so much.

The ceiling rose to a decent height of thirty feet and had the barest definition of stalactites, more like dumpy upside-down hills than pointy protrusions you feared might drop down on your head. Nestor hoped for a hole or a crack in the ceiling, desired to feel a drop of water on his forehead or hear a tinny whistle that indicated a minute breeze had breached the cave. But as he checked and rechecked the solemn confines of his prison, his hopes rapidly diminished.

Two protuberances on the ceiling caught his attention. They were situated above the long-destroyed entrance, flanking it on both sides. They looked like bulges in the cavern wall except for the fact that the rock that composed them was a hodgepodge of different types. A puzzle of limestone and granite and sandstone and darker minerals like coal and lava rock. They had a real jigsaw appearance, the rocks melded together at the seams like two varieties of jam merging with each other on a dinner plate. They appeared cobbled together from whatever remains could be found in the cave, almost as if someone, or something, had been cut off from access to better materials and had been forced to improvise. But to what end? Were they some kind of decoration, or were they protective shells around something built into the wall?

Whatever their purpose was, it was a mean feat that put them there. The protuberances were a good twenty feet across and stuck out halfway up the wall. A lot of effort for a weird aesthetic.

The final discovery awaited right above Nestor's head. In the dim light of his field, he had missed it the first three times he inspected the ceiling. What he had mistaken for another dumpy stalactite was in fact far sharper than the rock around it, stuck half into the ceiling with its top on the bottom. A few of the decorative symbols on its surface somehow reflected, or reacted to, the light of Nestor's field, allowing Nestor to make it out better the longer he stared at it.

A T-Node. Most likely the one that had deposited him in the cavern.

Even though he knew his time was limited, that events outside the cave had to be moving fast and that his own lifespan might last no longer than the amount of breathable air within the cave, Nestor sat down cross-legged and let his field power down, encasing his surroundings in darkness. He became lost in thought for a time, putting together the facts of his situation as best he could despite the Monolith-sized holes in his knowledge.

It was either this or give into the ton of emotional weight pressing down on him, and he was pretty sure it would crush him if he let it.

He didn't remember any sensation of falling, so he must have passed out during the teleport. His last memory was of swirling lights beckoning to him, dragging him away from Hiccup and Toothless and out into the ether of existence. Even with his barrier field, he would have felt a fall from that high up, so either he'd been really out of it or he had rematerialized close to the ground.

It didn't explain anything about where Hiccup and Toothless had gone. He could only hope that they had found someplace safer to reappear. He desperately shut out the despairing idea that they might not have reappeared _anywhere_.

There was no way he could reach the T-Node from here. Too far away from the walls and almost nothing to grasp near it, and he couldn't jump that high. A dragon would've been very useful right about now.

Some aspects of the cave had similarities to various Shadow Halls Nestor had visited during his time in Arc's company, particularly the carved path he currently sat upon, but most Shadows Halls didn't have high ceilings and wide open areas. They were designed to guard the last secrets of the Artisan Empire during the End War, designed to be covert and nondescript and practical, nothing more than holes dug out of mountains that they stuck Guardians into as sentries. This place didn't seem to be hiding any Guardians, and the one valuable thing in the whole chamber was affixed to the ceiling where only the absurdly tall could get at.

Nestor turned on his field and looked straight up, studying the T-Node and the layout of the cave. He got the impression that the layout was done on purpose, that someone had built the T-Node into the ceiling as a means to drop visitors teleporting into the cave on their heads. Either that, or only those individuals with the power to fly or hover were supposed to use it.

Or maybe he was over-thinking this. There might have been other equipment around for travelers to use, like stairs or floating platforms. Perhaps the Artisans took everything with them and sealed up the cave to protect the T-Node. But then why not take the T-Node? Wouldn't that be like miners abandoning a diamond mine by taking all their tools but leaving all the valuable rocks behind?

The absolute weirdest part was how the cave was just too _neat_, too nice and preserved from the elements. There should be a lot more debris lying around after so many eons.

In this lightless place, he was surprised not to be freezing his fanny off. Brisk, yes, but not uncomfortable. Almost like someone had locked in the heat, or something in the cave was generating it.

_Salo krebit_, did any of this analysis matter? He was utterly alone in some Fate-abandoned corner of the world, with no chance of rescue coming. The one exit out of here had tons of rock blocking it up. It was possible that, with enough time, he might move it away with the aid of his barrier field, but that assumed that the cave entrance led outside, or that the entire mountain hadn't caved in over the course of eons, or that he had enough air to last.

_What is the alternative, my boy?_

That was the problem with having a practical mind for a dragon mentor. Even when Arc wasn't around, his voice always lingered, playing the devil's advocate or scolding him for a new instance of stupidity. This time out, it was almost welcome.

_I'll give you a hint: the alternative is to return to your sleeping spot and wait for the air to turn sour. Does that appeal to you?_

"I'm not in the mood for this, Old Man." He knew he was speaking to himself. He wasn't _that_ far gone. But he didn't exactly have anyone else to talk to at the moment.

_Get in the mood, Nestor. You have one direction to go and one way to get there, and very little time left_.

Hopelessly practical, even in his imagination, and the voice would undoubtedly pester him until he got a move-on. Exertion would make his air supply run out quicker, but there was no point in waiting. No one was going to dig him out, and if he was going to die in here, he might as well die standing.

Getting to his feet, Nestor diverted power to his arms as he approached the cave-in. The jumbled pile of boulders and slabs was higher than his head, the average rock weighing several hundred pounds by the looks of them. Even with his field, it was going to take a long time.

* * *

He put his arms around the nearest boulder and heaved it away from the pile. The rock tumbled down one of the nearby slopes, crunching into the cavern wall and filling the air with the noise of grinding collisions. Other echoes joined it as more rocks flew throughout the cave, Nestor grunting and sweating with the effort. Large swirls of dust, at home amongst the boulders and undisturbed for millennia, leaped and flowed around Nestor as he methodically picked apart the cave-in.

An hour into the dig, Nestor was beginning to feel slightly light-headed and had to stop to regain his breath. His arms felt chewed up, his muscles not used to this kind of heavy work. He'd spent too long relying on his field to do the work for him, and the field couldn't block out everything. Especially the gray dust, or what he assumed was gray dust in the light of his field. It coated him from head to toe and he breathed it in with every inhale.

Leaning on a boulder for support, he checked out his progress. Not much to cheer about, really. He'd gotten rid of the forward section of the pile and could now make out a cobbled archway sculpted from the cavern wall, but the actual entrance remained crammed with stones. And when he said crammed, he meant it. Someone had gone to the trouble to jam every hole up with debris. Some of the rocks were cracked and fragmented, as if broken apart from bigger rocks for the purpose of being wedged into every potential nook and cranny.

This was not a natural cave-in, or at least some parts of it weren't natural.

Selecting one of the bigger rocks filling up the entrance, Nestor channeled more strength to his arms and shoved it hard, hoping there was empty space on the other side. The rock groaned under his strength, a little shifting here and there along the wall, but the rock refused to budge outward. There were more rocks on the other side for sure.

There was a weird component to all this. The way the rocks were wedged, with the pile formed on top of it – such effort could have only come from someone doing it from _this_ side of the cave-in. Someone had trapped themselves inside the cave to ensure no one got in or out. Perhaps they used the T-Node to escape, as there were no skeletal remains littering the floor. Then again, any remains would be reduced to dust after a few millennia.

Dust.

Nestor blanched at the stuff clinging to his shirt and pants. Why oh why did he have to go there? Didn't he have enough terrible things to contemplate already?

Nestor took to yanking out rocks like one might yank burs from cat fur, with much difficulty and not without a bit of fight from the cat. The stones were well wedged in and it took careful selection to take one without causing the wall to collapse right on top of him. His field was weakening as he exerted, and while a rockslide wouldn't kill him outright it could deplete his field to the point of rendering it useless. Then he'd have to wait for the field to recharge, and he probably wouldn't survive the wait.

He pulled at each rock with the hope that this one or that one would lead to a whiff of fresh air or a sudden gap in the collapse. He hoped continuously for the many hours he worked at the cave-in, sweat staining his clothes, his muscles aching with each new grab, throw, or pull, his throat growing scratchy and his breathing labored. He was saved from injury on numerous occasions, rocks bouncing off his head from a bad pull or his knees colliding with the ground after he tripped on loose pebbles, but the mistakes were adding up.

The archway morphed into a twenty-foot wide tunnel with the same cobbled pattern, the ceiling low enough for him to touch on tippy-toe. It went on for quite a ways, boringly straight. Nestor dug through the middle section, doing his best to minimize the path through the cave-in to man-sized dimensions. But the rocks had a tendency to fall into the empty space he created, and he spent as much time clearing debris out of his way as he did digging it out.

Time was hard to measure in lightless places, and Nestor could only guess at how long he'd been digging when he stopped to catch his breath… and realized he couldn't catch it again. It was like sprinting while standing still, and the feeling terrified him. He stopped amidst the lifeless piles of stone and desperately tried to get his lungs to slow down. It took far too long to do, and even then he knew it was only a short matter of time before it happened again, this time with death stopping his lungs permanently.

As he brought his breathing under control, his eyes wandered over the progress he'd made so far. He'd gotten maybe a hundred feet into the tunnel. Maybe two hundred. Hard to judge in the dark. His barrier field shown at less than a tenth of its standard illumination; he could barely see the start of the tunnel behind him, much less the cavern beyond. He'd done what would have taken twenty men a full day to do, but it was not going to be enough. He knew that now.

Worn out, his determination falling quickly towards despair, he gave the rocks ahead of him one last desperate, angry shove. The rock wall felt as solid as when he started – only the dust stirred at his touch. He tried to yank out another boulder and found his strength wanting, the boulder falling from his grasp and landing with a heavy thud, an inch from flattening his toes. A thick cloud of dust arose, surrounding Nestor in its throat-clogging embrace. He covered his mouth and retreated out of the tunnel. The dust followed him like a ghostly wrath, daring him to breathe it in, and he moved further down the cobbled path to escape it.

By the time he'd moved far enough away to escape the floating choking hazard, he felt winded all over again. He sat down and struggled to relax his breathing, but his body fought him hard this time. It needed more air, better air, but there was none to be had. He could feel the acute and not-so-acute strains in his muscles now, signaling that his field close to collapsing. The unpleasant side-effect of having a barrier field was that the weaker it got, the more _mortal _you felt, and he'd start to feel many of the pains his field had protected him from until now. Too bad it offered no help against the pain of suffocation.

"This is it, then," he spoke to the cave and to any wandering spirits that might still inhabit it. His defeated tone matched his defeated face. "There is where I die."

He didn't have the energy or the desire to face death on his feet. Taking a lie-down felt like the better option. He lowered himself to the rough stone and laid on his back, letting his field collapse entirely so that the darkness could take away the grim reminders of his soon-to-be tomb. His breathing relaxed as he gave in to inevitability, his eyes closed and his arms at his side.

"Must be punishment," he spoke aloud, his voice now little more than a whisper. "Failing to save Astrid. Failing to save Hiccup and Toothless. The Fates sent me here to die like I should've years ago, alone and slowly."

_Do you still think the world is out to punish you, my boy?_

A faint image hovered in front of Nestor, a translucent form with green scales and a long body and a scrutinizing gaze. In the utter darkness of the cave, Arc's form was as bright as a bonfire. His one beacon of light through the years when his life was at its worse. Now he would be the beacon that ushered Nestor out of this life.

Part of him knew this was his mind collapsing on itself. The rest of him didn't care. A hallucination beat a lonely end every time.

"Why wouldn't I think that? I cheated the Fates, thanks to you. I was supposed to die back then. We both know that. A meaningless death for a meaningless life."

_You're not supposed to judge yourself so harshly. That's my job._ Arc's mouth didn't move with the words, but his voice was as clear as a summer sky.

"But it's the truth. I was a castoff, a child of a dead family. The village didn't want me. They had their own problems to think about, their own children. They were more than thrilled to kick me out when I survived the plague, like they were looking for an excuse. I was nothing to them… I was meaningless."

_And I suppose they had the market cornered on truth and purpose, correct?_

"Don't get me wrong, Arc. I don't want or care for their approval. But… I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to be alive for a reason, a good reason. I wanted to prove that you were right to keep me alive, that you didn't screw up in giving me this… this gift. So the only reason concerning why I should end up here, the reason that makes sense, is that I screwed up. This is punishment."

_That's the lack of air to your brain talking,_ Fictional Arc scolded. _I taught you better than this. The universe does not single us out, not for gain or for misery. Events happen to us, but we also make events happen. You are here because you took action, nothing more. Even the best of actions often fail to achieve beneficial consequences._

"You know, even in my mind, you suck at this kind of stuff," commented Nestor dryly. "You can't even tell me my life's had meaning."

_Why do you think it hasn't?_

It was no longer Arc's voice, nor was the image before him a serious-looking dragon. The switch had been so subtle it hadn't registered on Nestor, and like in the craziest of dreams it somehow made perfect sense. The woman before him was far more comforting to look at, though no less transparent or fake.

Saga now hovered before him, clad in her traditional red-and-black battle garb but wearing a peaceful expression on her beautiful face. Like Arc, her lips did not match her voice, but she had her arms crossed, looking at him as if he was lying down on the job.

_There is a dragon that you rescued from his path of self-destruction. There is a village in the north that still stands, in no small part because of you. There are lives all through the land that you've touched, in big ways and small. And I am here, fighting the good fight, because of you._

"I can't take credit for that," said Nestor. "Astrid was your friend before I came along. She did more than I did. Besides, you were always set on your path. You're a Seer, after all."

_There are no set paths, Outlander. Only possibilities. Astrid was my friend, and she showed me a different road to walk. But you… in my darkest hour, you gave me the reason I needed to walk it. Now I will repay the favor before you give up entirely._

"Saga… it's not like I didn't try." He felt wetness rimming his eyes. What he wouldn't give to see her alive and okay, to see her in the flesh one final time... "I honestly don't want to go like this."

_Then do two things for me, Outlander._ She smiled for him, that rare expression on her face that made him feel like he could take on a hundred axe-crazy Vikings all over again. _Turn on your field one more time… and look up._

Saga was silent now, giving him the stern face she made when he needed to do something important rather immediately. Not wanting to disappoint even a fictional Saga, and not having anything better to do, he raised his right arm and shunted his field into his hand, channeling the last of his power into his fingers. Since he was on his back already, looking up wasn't a problem.

The ceiling loomed over him in the flickering orange glow, no different than before. The T-Node hung from its roost, taunting him with an exit just out of reach. No changes to the scenery that he could make out. That's what he got for listening to a figment of his…

No, there was something different, over by the tunnel entrance.

One of the bulges in the wall, the multi-mineral outcropping on the left, had a few holes in it. Holes that hadn't existed the last time he'd checked. His light couldn't extend into the holes, but it looked like several sections of the bulge had come unglued, like the sealant that had bound the various minerals together was weakening. Nestor sat up and saw the debris on the ground below the cracking bulge, recognizing a few of the pieces that had fallen. He had walked right by them without noticing. The bulge must have cracked while he was digging out the tunnel, his noisy efforts masking the sound of the bulge's growing disintegration.

Did he accidentally hit it with a rock during his reverse-excavation attempt? He didn't remember anything like that. No earthquake in recent memory, either. Perhaps the vibrations of his digging knocked it loose. The reason didn't really matter, though. A bulge in the wall wasn't going to change his fate at this…

Something flashed within the bulge. Orange, like his barrier field. It was there and gone in an eye blink. Something reflecting field light from within, unless his brain was playing tricks on him again…

A violent lurch from the bulge sent Nestor's heart racing, battle instincts mobilizing him to get back to his feet as he watched a long, shiny, tentacle-like limb punch out from within the mineral shell, and _shell_ was the right word now because something was hatching from it.

Three more limbs shot out soon after, the ends of the limbs forming four-clawed appendages that began to whip around and pull at the shell, rending chunks of rock away and tossing them outward.

Woozy and demoralized, Nestor still managed to muster up some horror as the thing spent half-a-minute taking apart the rocky shell that had encircled it for who knows how long, freeing itself from its captivity and showering the cavern floor with more debris. Its fours limbs forcefully attached themselves to the wall and walked the… thing down like a four-legged spider. It reached the cobbled ground and jumped down to stand before Nestor, showing off its alien contours and reflective hide.

Nestor had seen plenty of crazy over his short life, yet he was fairly certain he'd never seen anything like this. The creature… no, the thing… no, the _Guardian's_ torso was a lump of shapeless metal with four limbs sticking out of it at odd angles. The best comparison he could come up with was a hermit crab's shell if it was completely smooth and had no entrance for any vagrant crabs. It looked like no one had bothered to sculpt the Guardian into a coherent shape. The Artisans had a thing for statues and skeletal forms, designs based on living things and not random rocks you might pick up in a gravel pit.

To add to the horror, a fifth limb erupted from the front of the Guardian, extending half as long as the four primary limbs and forming three cylindrical protuberances at the very tip. Nestor didn't get the purpose of this newest limb until the cylinders suddenly lit up, three circles of yellow light staring right at him. The eyes of the Guardian, apparently, which didn't make much sense as Guardians had never needed eyes before.

Nestor's fear was blunted by his complete confusion. This design reminded him of the Monolith, a very basic form designed for transformation rather than aesthetics. This Guardian had to be one of the newer designs in the Artisan arsenal, completed before the End War came to its fiery conclusion. Considering how easily it punched through stone, it might be the thing responsible for filling in the tunnel. But Guardians only had one purpose in life – guarding. What was the point in placing a stone shell around itself? Every other Guardian Nestor had faced off with had been patiently waiting in their Shadow Halls, standing around like steel idols until someone disturbed their guard zone.

_I wish you'd given me more to go on, Imaginary Saga, _Nestor thought. Even his idolized version of her made her predictions way too vague, and if this thing was going to help him it sure wasn't rushing to do so. Worse, should it prove hostile, he was in no shape to fight. His field was only good for illumination now, and he was getting drowsier by the second. If it wanted him, it would have him.

But why hadn't it attacked already? He had to be well into the Guardian's guard zone…

Nestor jumped in shock when an ear-piercing noise assailed him, forcing him to cover his ears and retreat a few steps from the Guardian. The wail was coming from the Guardian, a chorus of different sounds that might have been part blaring horn, part lion-like animal roar, part crashing ocean wave, and maybe a babbling human voice here and there. The Guardian stood there as it emitted the discordant noise, the "head" staring at him as if expecting an answer to its nonsense.

One more mystery to chew on in the brief time he had left. Guardians didn't make noise… ever.

The wail mercifully cut out after a few seconds, but Nestor barely had time to lower his hands from his ears when the Guardian abruptly rushed at him. Its right-forward limb launched out and snared Nestor around his right hand, yanking him off his feet. Nestor cried out in fear and pain and struggled in the Guardian's iron grip, but he was back to plain Nestor and his muscles were useless against the machine.

Then he felt a sucking sensation coursing through his right hand, as if a part of him was being drawn out of his body. He watched with renewed horror as the glow of his field began to transfer from his imprisoned hand to the metallic limb holding it. Light flowed into the ageless myssteel, tiny veins of energy popping up along the tentacle. Nestor had the horrid realization that the Guardian was feeding off his barrier field like a parasite draining blood. He prayed to the Fates that it would stop with just his field and not drain anything else.

Stop it did, and only after a few seconds of draining. The transfer faded as the cavern began to dip into shadow once more. The Guardian froze in what might have passed for bafflement, staring at Nestor in the dark with its cold tri-eyes. The Guardian was now the only light source in the cave, its metal skin alive with little glowing blood vessels.

"Too bad, you overgrown gardening spade," said Nestor. "You should've come for a feeding hours ago." Despite his flippant tongue, he now felt twice as weary as before. His barrier field did a lot to prop up his physique, and without it he was feeling a day's worth of hard labor catch up to him. Given time it would recharge, as the Hyperion essence Arc had bequeathed to him was part of his very soul, and only death could rob him of his power. That said…

The Guardian let out a quick burst of its discordant, garbled speech and dropped Nestor like a sack of potatoes, his knees giving out as he hit the floor. He crumpled on impact, his body feeling like all life had escaped it already. He clung to consciousness out of fear that he would never wake up again if he passed out. The air must be pretty bad now; his chest felt like a herd of cattle was standing on it.

The Guardian now ignored Nestor completely, moving back to the wall and climbing it with ease, quickly advancing all the way up the wall on its alternating tentacle-legs. It met the ceiling and transferred over, hanging upside down like a steel spider that was missing half its normal complement of legs. It had no trouble clinging to the rocky surface as it made its way to the center of the ceiling, stopping next to the T-Node and watching it cautiously, as if the artifact might try to escape. The Guardian's garble-cry erupted again for a moment, and then the machine suddenly grew a foot longer as its limbs lengthened right on the spot. It settled below the T-Node like a self-correcting chandelier, blocking off Nestor's sight of the device, and then hard crunching sounds began to ring out above Nestor, stone giving way to myssteel as the Guardian's limbs dug into the stone. Pebbles, dust, and bigger fragments fell away into the darkness, though Nestor could hear the pattering and thumping of the bigger chunks several feet away.

His chest grew heavier as time ticked by, each breath slightly more strained than the last. He didn't have the energy to waste on moving, so he didn't try. There was no point to it now. He was spent, in every sense of the word. His last act in life had been to fuel an ancient war machine that was now tearing up the cave for no reason.

What little light projected by the Guardian grew ever dimmer, and he knew it was his vision clouding over. Nestor lost track of time, unable to place the weird sounds of crunching and digging, sounds that grew more and more distant as the world grew further away. He stopped caring about the world around him after a time, thoughts of the people he cared about swimming in his head. They didn't appear to him as visions this time, but they were there with him. Hiccup and Astrid and Toothless, Arc and Saga, Qiao and Linebreaker. The ones he had called friend in his life; the ones he had loved.

He had met the blackness of his mind before on many occasions, but the blackness heading toward him now was different this time. Far more substantial, far deeper… and far more final…

* * *

And then he breathed.

His body drew in the needed air as if he was a newborn taking his first breath. He coughed and sputtered as he sucked in precious life, expelling the gathered dust in his mouth and throat for what felt like forever, the final blackness of oblivion fleeing again as it always had in the past.

Nestor rolled onto his stomach as he coughed his life away, using gravity to help force more of that misbegotten dust from his body. It didn't help that his throat was bone dry, nor did the continuing darkness of the cave make things easier. But after an eternity of retching he managed to bring his coughing fit to a close. He didn't move for several minutes while he greedily took in the delightfully fresh air now present in the cave.

He couldn't feel a draft, but he swore he could hear a faint air current in the distance. Cave systems had a tendency to carry sound a long ways, so he didn't think it was within the cavern he was in. But this was a welcome change, for there was good air to breathe, and where there was air there was an exit.

Besides having good air again, he was feeling loads better in general, the major soreness and cramps in his muscles reduced to minor strains. Some time must have gone by while he laid in the darkness. Enough time to get back some of his barrier field.

He sat up again and studied the dark chamber for any illuminating signs of the Guardian. He didn't see any. If it was still here, it had gone dark. The Guardian must have been doing a lot of digging while he was passed out. It might not even be in the chamber, having dug an escape route for reasons known only to the machine. Then again, it might be preparing an ambush for him, waiting for his field to recharge so it could feed on him again. At this point, he expected anything from this enigmatic Guardian.

He couldn't stay here forever in the dark. The machine was probably gone. Probably.

Nestor tapped into his reserves and found some to use. Not a lot – he was at a third of his strength. That meant he'd been out for an hour or so. He was very lucky to be alive. Fates' Luck was still with him, more or less.

His left hand became a mystical, heatless torch as renewed light flowed over his flesh. The cavern quickly grew substance, and much had changed since he'd last seen it.

For one thing, the cobbled path was covered in debris, far more than previously. The Guardian had not been particularly neat in its excavating, but it was clear that it had picked up where Nestor had stopped. Nestor couldn't see down the tunnel, but he could feel air flowing from that direction. That was the route out of here.

For another thing, the ceiling had lost its T-Node, the rock chewed up where the T-Node used to be. The Guardian must have taken the artifact – it had been very deliberate about its actions. But what does a Guardian need with a T-Node?

Finally, and most importantly, there was a metal statue standing in front of Nestor.

Of course, it wasn't actually a metal statue. _Salo krebit_, he really wished it was. His heart's brief flirtation with hope had a quick rebuff as soon as he made out the four tentacle-legs situated in front of the entrance to the tunnel. As if triggered by his field's light, a tentacle-head quickly sprang out of its shell-like torso and formed a head of sorts, staring at Nestor with its lidless glowing eyes of three, blue as the deep ocean.

Blue, not orange.

The distinct change in the Guardian's physicality caused Nestor to freeze in place. Why blue eyes now? Why did it dig a hole and not leave? If it was after more barrier field energy, why did it wait for him to wake up? None of this machine's actions made any sense.

Then he noticed the shell-body of the machine. It had the same shape, or at least close enough to be mistaken as the same, but a few of the body's ridges weren't matching Nestor's memory. The legs were spouting from different locations as well. Guardians were made of fluid metal, capable of flexing like organic skin and muscle, and they even could morph their bodies on occasion, but they usually reverted back to their original design. The Guardian's body just wasn't the same, just like you'd notice a tiger's shifted stripes even if it looked like the same hungry tiger that had attacked you earlier.

Not daring to move an inch otherwise, he glanced up at the rightmost rock-bulge and found it missing from the wall. It had fallen apart, just like its companion on the left. Rubble filled the ground below it, providing further evidence that the thing inside it had "hatched" while Nestor was unconscious.

Nestor groaned as he completed his logic processing. This was not the Guardian from earlier. _This_ one had recently emerged from its cozy hiding spot to greet him. _This_ one had taken longer to wake up, for whatever reason, and was now standing in Nestor's way.

This one was probably just as hungry as its companion, and Nestor was the only thing around to feed on.


	4. Footprints

**Author's Note:**I am currently submitting this while I'm on vacation, using an uncooperative laptop. So I won't be responding to anyone for a few more days. Rest assured, I thank you all for reading, reviewing, and emailing, and I'll be back to communicating properly shortly.

Onwards.

**Chapter Three: Footprints**

Hiccup felt his first real sense of relief in days when he heard the dragon speak his unofficial title in a thick accent. He had now officially met his first Hyperion that wasn't Arc, and even better, his reputation preceded him… which begged a bunch of questions, actually.

"This may sound like a dumb question, but you are a Hyperion, right?" he asked.

Hiccup expected an eye roll and a smirk. All he got was a nonchalant head waggle. "Not so dumb a question. As most humans have no concept of Hyperion nature, I am impressed zat you even ask such a question."

Toothless eased up on the back arching but still kept protectively close to Hiccup. Toothless was naturally defensive around new dragons, an understandable reaction considering Hiccup's typical first-contact moments with unknown species involved chase sequences and misunderstandings and a wardrobe full of slightly crispy clothing.

"Sorry, I guess I expected more irritation and less congeniality," said Hiccup. "I've been hanging around Arc too long."

The Hyperion Skrill chuckled lightly. "Archibald? Yes, I see. Your attitude is a common side effect. A better question is ze one I ask you: what are you doing in ze Desolation? No human has walked here in centuries."

"Desolation? Is that the name of this desert?"

"Indeed. So named by ze local human tribes, and ze closest one of zose is hundreds of miles to ze northeast."

"So you haven't seen a young women in a black robe, walking around like she's in a daze?"

The Skrill stared at him for a long moment. "Vhat?"

"Uh, nothing. A weird dream I had before you showed up. So to answer your question… uh, well, I actually can't answer it."

The Skrill cocked his head. "Zat does not help."

"Seriously, I don't know. A friend of mine, who's gone missing, zapped me with some kind of mystical device and we ended up here."

The Skrill appeared less confused and more thoughtful. "Zis device, it uses a great deal of power?"

"Probably. Why?"

"Zat is vhy I'm here. I felt a great flow of energy erupt from ze sands of ze Desolation, like ze coming of a dozen thunderstorms. It led me to zis place, to ze mating grounds of zat pair zat you intruded upon."

Hiccup got it now. While the dragons of Berk were very communal and flexible in terms of sharing land and resources, there were still territorial dragons that acted like angry old men with "GET OFF MY LAWN" signs posted everywhere. Only dragons were less likely to yell obscenities at you and more likely to bite off your head if you crossed into their territory.

"Zey are gone for now," continued the Skrill. "Zough zeir patience is only good for a day. I suggest you not be here tomorrow at sunset."

"Can all Skrill sense… what, energy?"

"All Skrill can sense lightning. Ve use ze storms to travel afar. But becoming a Hyperion enhances a dragon's natural abilities. I can sense all forms of energy, some natural, some not so natural. I had almost pinpointed ze location of ze energy disruption I felt two days ago, but ze feeling is fading quickly. You wouldn't happen to be of assistance in zis matter?"

Hiccup shrugged. "All I want to do is get out of here and find my friends and…" A shadow settled on his face as his thoughts started getting darker, the distraction of the present giving way to the omnipresent siege of loss surrounding his heart. He forced it off his face with a grimace. "I have bigger things to worry about, okay?"

The Skrill must have caught the change in his disposition. His scaly face softened in empathy. "Somezing bad occurred, did it not? Somezing involving ze Repository?"

Hiccup was well on his way to liking this Hyperion. But the sudden name drop of their secret mission made him immediately suspicious. "How do you know that?"

"A fellow Hyperion by ze name of Adonis, Dragon Rider. He had a tense discussion with Archibald, and afterwards he felt zat a secret of such dire importance had to be safeguarded. He called to me and I came. My species can travel ze vorld in mere days upon riding the lightning. He told me to varn ze ozer Hyperions of a grave danger zat may soon arise, and I was conducting my mission vhen I felt ze disruption. A certain degree of serendipity is in play here, vouldn't you say?"

Hiccup relaxed again. Arc had told him about Adonis, or Adon as Arc called him. He sighed bitterly, knowing he needed to tell the Skrill what had transpired and absolutely not wanting to do it.

"Yeah, something bad occurred," he said. "Something really bad."

But before Hiccup could start his tale, the Skrill held up a wing in the dragon equivalent of a hold-your-tongue gesture. "Zis sounds long, and if you've been here for two days zen I doubt you have eaten, as zere are reasons why zis place is called Ze Desolation."

The Skrill brought around his spiky tail for Hiccup to see, presenting it like he was offering a gift. The gesture was lost on Hiccup until he noticed the odd pieces of debris stuck on the tail's upper spikes, as if the dragon thought his lack of self-grooming was something to show off. Except it wasn't debris stuck to his tail spikes, but pieces of dried meat not altogether different from jerky. The brown slices hadn't dried entirely, still fresh enough to dangle on the dragon's spines without crackling, and the meaty aroma suggested they hadn't gone off yet. Exactly what animal the meat had come from remained to be seen, but Hiccup's stomach didn't really care. If it wasn't a regurgitated fish, he was good.

Toothless eyed the strips with quivering hunger. He was even less picky than Hiccup.

"Try one," said the Skrill. "I suggest ze ones toward the tip of my tail. I added seasoning to zose ones."

Hiccup pulled off a strip and took a bite. He was surprised at how un-revolting it was. For jerky made by a dragon, it was quite pleasant. Was that pepper he tasted?

As he gobbled up his strip, he plucked another one off the Skrill's tail and tossed it to Toothless, who wolfed it down in one gulp. He gave Toothless two more while he chomped down on a second strip. Gods, he hadn't realized how hungry he was until now.

"Is this a Skrill thing," asked Hiccup between bites, "or a Hyperion thing?"

"Neither. It's a Lozar zing… Lozar being me, of course."

"Lozar?"

"No, Lo-_zar."_

"I think that's what I said."

"No, _zar_ as how you pronounce zimble and zread."

"Zimble and… oh, thimble, I get it. Lo-_thar_."

"Correct. Lozar."

It was a good thing Hiccup was too busy relishing the comforting feel of the pit in his stomach filling up on dragon-made jerky or he might have thought this conversation exceedingly confusing. Then he remembered his manners and gestured to himself and his dragon.

"Hiccup and Toothless, respectively," he said. "But you didn't really answer my question."

"I am a messenger of the Hyperion," stated Lothar, as if such a thing was a great honor. "I cannot afford to stop and catch my dinner all ze time. I invented a vay to eat on ze go."

Two years of dragon riding and Hiccup had never even considered the idea of transporting ready-made meals on the dragons themselves. He could add one more idea to his creative to-do list when he got home…

Just like that, the brief warm feeling generated by his stomach got swept away by one quick remembrance. Home… could he even bear to go home now after losing Astrid?

Hiccup felt his legs go rubbery on him and he had to sit down before they gave out. He actually hadn't considered Berk in his grief. Astrid's parents, all his friends… what could he possibly tell them? That she died in battle and that made it okay? That he had been inches from her and he still couldn't save her…

He buried his face in his hands and desperately tried quelling the renewed grief swelling in him. This was not the place for this, breaking down in front of a Hyperion Skrill in the middle of nowhere. But he couldn't help it. The pain was too raw, too fierce.

Toothless looked at him with renewed concern while Lothar pivoted to face him, giving Hiccup a surprisingly sympathetic expression despite his awkward reptilian face not having much emoting power.

"Talking of it may help," said Lothar.

"It wouldn't change anything," Hiccup sadly replied.

"Zis is true, but a fresh perspective can do vonders. In addition, perhaps it vill help us understand how you got here."

"What would that do for me and Toothless?"

"Perhaps nothing, perhaps everyzing. Ve von't know unless you share."

Most dragons had little in the way of a talk-to-me face, and the Skrill's face was even less approachable than most. But Lothar's kind demeanor did much to counter Hiccup's misgivings. Clearly, not all Hyperions followed Arc's approach to socializing. Hiccup also realized that he needed someone to speak to that could speak back, to confirm that the battle in the Repository wasn't a bad dream.

So he started from the day he saw Riki Poka for the first time, and he went from there.

* * *

Darkness came early that night, and it was less comforting than before now that Hiccup knew there were testy Skrills in the area. But with Lothar around, he was less anxious to leave than before. Likewise, it felt slightly cathartic to tell his tale to someone who hadn't lived it with him, making the hours gently flow by like soft music from a flute. Toothless had to superheat a few rocks to use for light, as there was nothing flammable to burn other than Hiccup and his attire.

Lothar asked a lot of intelligent questions, about the Alchemist, about the Repository, about the half-metal Night Fury named Dark Star (though Hiccup sometimes reverted to calling her Metal Fury out of habit). He wondered what had caused the crew of the Alchemist's ship to fire on the tower, he asked for a detailed description of Hiccup's experience with the eerie lights that had enveloped him before arriving in the Desolation, and he seemed particularly keen on knowing the physical characteristics of the object Nestor had been holding right before the Repository faded away. Hiccup told him what he knew, which wasn't much. He'd largely stopped paying attention to the world at that point.

But for all of Lothar's probing questions about how Hiccup came to the Desolation, he did listen attentively when Hiccup recited the last moments he spent with Astrid, watching her abandon his futile attempt at saving her by letting go and dropping into the steam cloud below, disappearing from his sight and his life in the blink of an eye. The Skrill nodded his head solemnly, then waited quietly for Hiccup to collect himself when the tears started running down Hiccup's cheek once more.

"It's never gets easier, I fear," said Lothar softly after a time. "Even after seven centuries I find zere is no strategy nor tactic, no piece of sage advice nor comforting word zat makes loss any less painful. It is ze price paid for opening your heart. It is vhy so many Hyperions spend zeir days alone. Despite what zey say, sometimes it is better to be alone zan to pay the price over and over and over."

"So… stick to being alone in life?" Hiccup wiped his checks and stared hard at Lothar. "That's your advice?"

"It vas not offered as advice," said Lothar, glaring back at him. "It is merely vat ve do. You are young – you may understand in time. But for now, I tell you zis – it will hurt for now, perhaps for a long time, but it vill get better."

Hiccup nodded politely, utterly unconvinced. This conversation wasn't helping him at all. He felt like he was in a vast hole, surrounded by sheer sides and with no ladder or rope to grab onto, and the one guy who might be able to pull him out of it at the moment was looking down from on high and telling him that he'd get himself out eventually.

Lothar pushed himself up from his resting spot right before the cave and stretched out his spiky wings. "Forgive me my inadequacy in zese matters. I have not dealt vith death in many decades. Also, your story only feeds my need to discover your arrival point, vhere I may find more answers to my questions."

"But you were going to help us leave here."

"And I vill, but not tonight. Do you understand ze nature of your journey, young Dragon Rider? Teleportation, no matter how it is done, requires huge amounts of power. If an artifact exists here zat contains such power, it cannot be left unattended. Far too dangerous. I must investigate furzer."

"You could follow Toothless's tracks," offered Hiccup. "He had to walk us here because his tail was out of order."

"No good," said Lothar, shaking his head. "With ze vinds of ze Desolation as zey are, tracks here blow away vizin hours. I vill search for now and hope to be fortunate. On my vord, I vill return before midday tomorrow to escort you out of zis land. I advise zat you stay here until zen."

Hiccup and Toothless exchanged skeptical glances. The Desolation had well and truly earned its place in Hiccup's mind as the least desirable place to live on the planet after only two days (and having lived on Berk all his life, that was saying something) and spending another night in the desert was as attractive a prospect as getting stuck with keeping the village outhouses unfrozen all winter. Plus the minor detail about a pair of irked Skrills who wanted their watering hole vacated.

But they needed a guide, or the Desolation would be the death of them. Hiccup also had to concede that Lothar had a point. He'd seen the kind of damage Artisan artifacts could cause if misused, and they couldn't leave a potentially deadly artifact out in the open… even if the only thing endangered was a lot of sand.

"I guess we'll stay here and wait," admitted Hiccup. "But we're not hanging around another night."

"You von't have to. On my honor, I vill take you from zis place before ze next day is over."

Lothar offered his "jerky tail" once more, allowing Hiccup and Toothless to take as much as they needed to quell their hunger until tomorrow. It didn't leave much for Lothar, but he reassured Hiccup that he could find decent hunting grounds fairly quickly and that jerky no longer had the same appeal it once did over the centuries. It was easy to share.

The Skrill opened up his wings and made to leave, but hesitated suddenly, as if remembering something vital. He swung around to Hiccup. "Zere is one zing more. Zis land is said to be one of spirits and curses, where ze dead lie uneasy and unhappily. While I cannot attest to the validity of superstitions, I vould advise you to not be curious out here. Zis land is very unforgiving, and you are a stranger to it."

"Don't worry," said Hiccup. "I know a thing or two about wastelands. We'll play it smart."

He tried his best to act nonchalant as Lothar took to the air and glided out into the night-shrouded desert, disappearing beyond the sheltering rocks with little fanfare. But he was far from nonchalant – he was quite "chalant," if there was such a thing. For a change, it had less to do with his grief or his surroundings and everything to do with Lothar's parting words. Something about ghosts and the dead and the kind of thing that you really didn't want to hear right before nighttime fell in earnest.

Hiccup's imagination had always been his strongest and weakest character trait, a boon when it came to inventing devices and thinking outside the box and a flaw when it came to believing in otherworldly phenomena. He'd had his troll hunts of his early childhood (and he never did find any… well, until he heard of the Alchemist's henchman, the half-troll named Norom), he'd had a period when he was convinced that one of Berk's legendary Vikings, Rudolf the Annoying, was haunting his wardrobe, and he preferred to steer clear of any cemeteries or tombs after midnight. While time and experience had tempered his belief in the supernatural, the last few months hadn't helped matters, especially Cervantes and his power over the bones of the dead.

In his distraught frame of mind, it wasn't hard to think of the Desolation as a land of misfortune, where only the dead roamed freely. And then there was the girl in the flowing robe in his dream, walking by the cave as if she was being drawn somewhere…

Hiccup hoped it was just his picked-upon mind doing nonsensical dream stuff, but considering he'd never seen the girl before and his dreams were always about people, places, and things he'd seen in his life, it was hard not to feel uneasy. Hopefully nothing would come along to validate his fear, like seeing footprints in the sand right outside his cave.

Hopefully.

* * *

In the morning, there were footprints right outside his cave.

Hiccup stood next to them and stared at them passively, feeling very much like the world was singling him out for every sort of random insanity as of late. Even in the middle of nowhere, he still managed to happen upon dark tidings.

Toothless remained asleep in the cave, sleeping more deeply than he had in days. Sheer exhaustion had finally gotten to Toothless – you could only be on guard for so long before your body demanded rest, and it must have caught up with him. It also meant that whoever, or whatever, made the footprints had snuck by Toothless in the night. Toothless could hear a rat tiptoe with his keen ears.

Then again, ghosts didn't have to make noise, did they? Even ghosts who left boot prints in the sand, walking perpendicular to the cave and leading off into the desert. The indentations were unmistakable, and the boot prints were smaller than Hiccup's feet, which meant someone of a smaller stature than Hiccup had done this.

The night had gone by uneventfully otherwise, Hiccup and Toothless hanging it up early so they could get ready to leave in the morning should Lothar conclude his business early. Despite his anxiety over ghostly visitation and the myriad other issues on his mind, Hiccup found that sleep came easy once he gave into it. Perhaps knowing that he had one more ally out here made his life feel less out of control and miserable… though not by much.

There had been the dream again, though. An identical dream, as far as he could remember. The same surreal feel to the world, the same dark-skinned girl in the robe, walking the same direction past his cave on some kind of sojourn into the wastelands, a vacant expression etched on her face that suggested a trance or a utter disregard for her fate in the wastes.

But something changed at the last instance before he woke. Just as she began to pass the lip of the cave, her smooth face turned to him, her green eyes fixing onto his. Her expression didn't change, but there was power in those eyes, a pull that beckoned to him, telling him that he needed to follow her path, for her sake… for _his_ sake…

He had awoken feeling more out of sorts than the previous night, driven from his dream by his own misgivings. Toothless had barely moved during the night, Hiccup using him as a warm scaly bed once again. Needing to heed the call of nature, Hiccup had stepped outside and right into the path of the phantom boot prints that he absolutely knew hadn't been there the day before.

Forgetting all about nature's call for the moment, Hiccup could only stop and stare and wonder what to make of it. The dream hadn't made the footprints. Dreams didn't make footprints. So either he hadn't been dreaming, or the footprints weren't real.

But upon reaching down with his hand and feeling the contours of the closest print, the parted sand and the impression stamped in the gritty earth, there was no denying the reality. The prints were as real as he was.

A snort from behind him revealed that Toothless had come awake. The dragon padded out to him for a morning greeting, then immediately spied the footprints and became wary, like he'd just spotted a poisonous snake. He crept in close to one of them, sniffed it, and came away baffled. He sniffed it again and then looked at Hiccup as if he couldn't believe what he smelled.

"Your guess is as good as mine, bud," said Hiccup. "Did you get a scent?" Toothless's headshake meant a negative. He didn't expect him to, not if a spirit made the prints. Of course, what he knew about spirits and whether or not they had a smell could fit in a bumblebee's eye, but he just couldn't see ghosts having a reek to them.

"Okay, we can do this one of two ways," said Hiccup. "We can be the smart guys who stay put and wait for Lothar to show up so we can get out of here and we'll just chalk this up to, I don't know, sand elves playing tricks on us. Or… or someone is trying to tell me something and I can't just ignore this."

Toothless gave him a neutral look. Hiccup didn't actually expect Toothless to give him advice on how to deal with spirits and their chaotic ways, but it might have been nice to get an emphatic "don't follow the trail" message from the dragon. Instead, Toothless was doing what he usually did – trusting Hiccup's judgment on matters he didn't comprehend.

Would the spirit follow them if they left, or was this a regional haunting? If he assumed the girl was the actual spirit, it was possible that she was asking for his help. He'd read his share of stories about Viking ghost ships and their lost crews trying to find their way home before they could go to Valhalla, or vengeful spirits that needed justice done to the one that wronged them. Spirits seemed to require catharsis or absolution before moving on. Maybe this one was asking for the same thing, and as he was the only human to enter the Desolation in centuries, she was asking Hiccup for help.

Or maybe she wanted to suck out his soul with a straw.

"Staying put is the smart choice, bud," said Hiccup to Toothless, "but I can't stay put. I feel so… helpless, Toothless. Astrid, Nestor… I can't do anything for them. I can't even get us out of this place without help. But maybe… maybe I can do something good here. I think we need to follow this trail."

Hiccup thought he saw Toothless give him a doubting look, but the dragon's face hadn't changed at all. The doubt was coming from Hiccup. "It can't go very far out there, and even if it does we'll only go out twenty minutes and then come back. We have plenty of time before midday. The sun's barely up as it is. Lothar wouldn't leave without us."

Toothless wasn't arguing. Hiccup knew he was actually arguing with himself about how bad an idea this was, but after everything that had happened, he was desperate to turn things around. Bad idea or not, he already knew he was committed. It was either this or back to sitting around waiting for Lothar… and thinking about Astrid.

Twenty minutes flight time. They could cover a lot of ground that way. Long enough to know if this was a flight of fancy worth pursuing.

_Long enough to get into more trouble, too,_ he thought grimly.

* * *

They had to keep the speed down and the altitude low to stay on the trail. Even though the footprints stood out on the featureless sand like honey on flatbread, the prints weren't big and the rolling dunes hid the trail as the footprints crossed up and down them. Hiccup had taken note of as many landmarks as he could to ensure that they wouldn't get lost on the way back, since he couldn't trust the footprints to be around when he needed them. Lothar's words about how quickly the gusty winds of the Desolation erased everything had stayed with him, and thankfully Hiccup's navigational skills were up to snuff in the daylight.

Those same gusty winds were making things harder all around. Toothless had to make numerous corrections in air, as he was assailed by one powerful blast of wind after another, driving him off course each time. Clouds of brown and rust made up for the lack of any white in the sky, and they were forced to fly through several of the caustic clouds to keep on the trail. The sand whipped at them with frenzied intensity, forcing them to fly higher once Toothless complained for the fifth time about the quantity of sand he was being forced to breathe in. Hiccup had to screen his eyes with his hands to see at times, and he ate grit every time he shouted a command to Toothless.

The wind countered the heat of the emerging sun well enough, but without cover they would soon begin to bake like hog meat on a spit. Hiccup planned on being back in the cave long before that occurred.

The footprint trail was holding up remarkably well considering the strong winds blowing. The prints had to been hours old already, but they were just as visible as before, as if permanently frozen into the sand. This did not reassure Hiccup – when something simple like footprints defied the laws of physics, you knew you were in for a wild time.

It took only ten minutes for Hiccup to call this a bad stupid-crazy idea and decide to turn around while they still had a trail to follow. He might have done so had he not spied the first real non-sand landmark since leaving the cave, something out in the distance that resembled another set of towering stones, almost like a mountain had gotten buried in the desert over the eons and only the peak remained uncovered. The craggy stones were bigger and more foreboding than the ones they had left behind, and just looking at them made Hiccup feel nervous for some reason, but they were all that was out here for miles and miles, and there was the inescapable fact the trail was heading right for them. Made sense, as a wandering traveler would seek out shelter wherever possible.

Hiccup's uneasiness grew as he reconsidered his logic. This wasn't a wandering traveler in the conventional sense. Hiccup had a feeling ghosts didn't have issues with heat and sand. But if he was wrong and it wasn't a ghost after all, but someone in need of assistance, it remained the most likely place to hole up. As much as the idea of getting closer to those rocks made him uncomfortable, he had to be sure he wasn't turning his back on anyone in need before heeding back to the watering hole.

Daring to open his mouth and eat more "sand"-witches, Hiccup told Toothless to head for the rocks and come in for a landing. The dragon, who had itchy sand liberally stuck to every corner of his body, happily complied.

Using the lee side of the rocks as a barrier for the wind, they came in low and slow for a careful recon. The tracks disappeared upon reaching the stones, the track-maker presumably climbing up the low incline and skirting the numerous outcroppings that jetted from the beleaguered mountain. Most of the rocks were gray-brown, marred by countless years of sand scrapping, but there did appear to be a gap between two huge slabs of sedimentary stone that offered a refuge from the elements. In there, the sun could only get at you at midday. If Hiccup was seeking a place to survive in the Desolation, that would be it.

It was too narrow a gap for Toothless to fly into safely, so they landed a few feet from the edge of the gap. The spot was blessedly free of the scathing wind, at least until Toothless decided to furiously shake the accumulated sand from his body. Hiccup got pelted by a good chunk of the sand shower, but he didn't have the heart to berate Toothless over it. The poor dragon was having a worse time than he was, at least in terms of dealing with the dry environment.

Hiccup bit his lip as he stared down the gap, examining the place for hiding spots and potential dangers. Based on appearances, the gap didn't engender that jittery feeling you sometimes got with other nasty places. No steam erupting from natural vents in the stone. No lava – that was always a plus. Nothing crawled around looking for human-sized dinner options. The one aspect that bothered him was that the other side of the gap was a dead end, a forty-foot cliff that would be impassable for travelers on foot. Hiccup didn't have that problem, thankfully.

Yet he continued feeling that creepy vibe from earlier. It was like his dream with the robed girl, where the world just seemed a bit different, a bit _off._ The gap felt like that to a degree, like it didn't follow the same rules as the rest of the world. He had hoped that maybe he'd been pursuing a very sneaky traveler off the beaten path. Now his thoughts were heading back to spirit territory.

Well, he didn't come out here just to turn tail when things got a little creepy. Ghost or not, he needed to get this sorted out. Worse case scenario, he'd hop back on Toothless and they'd zoom away before they could get cursed or hexed or whatever else a ghost might be capable of doing.

He checked both Toothless's rudder and his own false leg for any sand issues and did some basic cleaning on both. No damage that he could find, thank Odin.

"Follow behind me," ordered Hiccup. "First sign of trouble, we're out of here. And let's keep the fireballs to a minimum. In this tight space, they're likely to blow back in our faces." Toothless nodded and crept behind Hiccup as the two of them stepped into the gap.

The creepy vibe didn't fade as Hiccup walked along the narrow gap, navigating the path with far more ease than his bulky companion, who had to climb over most of the obstacles that Hiccup could shimmy around. Hiccup noticed that the light got a litter redder as they passed into the gap's shadow, the air feeling heavier, almost stale. It felt more and more like a place that the world had left behind, where the rocks never aged a second, the wind never found purchase, and one could stay here and remain exactly the same for a thousand years. It was the weirdest feeling Hiccup had ever known.

As strange as the surroundings felt, Toothless showed no signs of timidity or fear as he walked behind Hiccup. That baffled Hiccup further. His dragon pal's senses were more acute than his, and many times Toothless had warned him of danger long before it arrived. But Toothless was nice and calm here. Either the creep-vibe wasn't something a dragon could pick up on, or the whole thing was in Hiccup's head. Considering his emotional state, Hiccup was leaning toward the latter possibility.

They came to a slight curve in the gap that forced Toothless to do some tight squeezing, so Hiccup opted to advance a few steps more and see what was around the curve. Outside of the creepy buzz, he hadn't seen a single piece of human inhabitance, or any other type of inhabitance, and he was starting to feel stupid for thinking there was anything out here in the Desolation to get worked up about…

Around the curve, Hiccup's metal foot touched down on a sudden incline and slipped out from under him. He yelped and went down on his fanny, too shocked by what he was seeing to register the pain in his rear.

The wall of rock past the curve yielded to a sizeable cave opening, at least sixty feet across from side to side and with a good forty feet height. It took up the entire side of the stone slab. The interior walls were solid rock, smoothed out as if a river had once rushed through it for centuries. The angle of the curve had hidden the cave from sight, the floor sloping down to give any clumsy explorers who ventured within a quick slide into its gaping maw, suggesting that it was the start of a cave system that went under the teeming sands. Most of the cave was consumed by gripping darkness, with only the first twenty feet lit up by sunlight reflecting off the outside stone. And the smell… old, like a forgotten cellar that used to store a bunch of foodstuffs and alcohol and now everything inside was moldy and rotted and ruined.

If that had been all, Hiccup might have called it a day and gotten back on Toothless. Exploring strange caves that reeked of fetid odors was way past his acceptable conditions for this stupid-crazy idea of his. But the first twenty feet of the cave held an image that made Hiccup forget about leaving at all.

There was a raised dais within the cave and near the entrance, six feet tall and designed like the old pillars that held up the Great Hall back in Berk, that presented Hiccup his newest surprise. How she had gotten up there confounded Hiccup, considering there was no ladder or stairway anywhere around the dais. She knelt on the dais with her robes flowing around her small body, her head bowed and her hands pressed together as if in deep prayer. She was turned toward him, eyes closed and face serene. She couldn't have missed his noisy entrance, but she offered no sign of acknowledging his existence.

"Uh, Toothless, you should see this," he stammered, finally getting to his feet. Wary of the slippery cavern floor, he stood in place and looked around for any other general weirdness. The girl praying alone on the dais was it, but it was enough. The dream girl was actually real – that filled his weirdness quota for the day.

"Um… hello?" Hiccup waved at her on reflex, even though she couldn't see him do it. "Can you hear me?"

Toothless cleared the tight curve and bounded to him, alarmed by Hiccup's change in demeanor. The dragon looked in the cave's direction and sniffed the air, shifting his ears to get a good read. He didn't seem to be looking at the girl in the cave, and he proceed to look around as if searching for the actual interesting thing Hiccup had mentioned, as if the girl wasn't interesting enough. Maybe he didn't consider her a threat, and was more worried about what lay within the deeper reaches of the cavern.

"Who are you?" he called out to the girl. "Did you walk by my cave last night? I followed a bunch of footprints out here, and I have to assume…"

He was getting nothing from her, not even a facial twitch in his direction. She looked alive; he could see her breathe at regular intervals, but no sign of awareness otherwise. Was she asleep up there? Regardless, he was going to get some answers from her for his troubles and if that meant disturbing her meditation, so be it.

"Toothless, I need a boost up there." It should've been an obvious request, yet Toothless now looked at him like he had just asked to be buried in the sand headfirst. Hiccup repeated his request and pointed at the dais. Toothless looked where he was pointing but still gave him a confused look. Not in the category of _bad idea_, but in the realm of _I don't know what you're talking about._

Hiccup didn't get it. The Night Fury's eyes were better than his. How could he not see her?

That's when it hit him. Maybe Toothless _couldn't_ see the girl because she wasn't really there. Maybe this was the spirit before him, appearing only to the eyes of a fellow human. Or maybe he was finally cracking up something fierce.

Blinded by his doubts on his own sanity, it took Hiccup a second to realize that the girl was now looking _at him,_ her green eyes peering out from below her black hood, a slight smile on her lips. She was aware of him now, that was for certain.

Suddenly, he felt a wave of wooziness pass through him, like every muscle in his body wanted to shut down all at once. It was like he was about to faint, only without the severe lightheadedness that went with it. He wobbled slightly, Toothless catching him before he went down entirely, Hiccup leaning on the dragon much like he had in the first days of his new foot, when he had to learn how to walk all over again.

The wave fled as rapidly as it came, though, and Hiccup felt strength returning to his body immediately. He stood back upright, much more anxious than before. Fainting spells were usually symptomatic of some other problem. Maybe thirst, though he didn't feel thirsty. Still, he felt fine right now.

Hiccup turned to reassure his dragon pal that he was okay when he became aware that Toothless was staring right at the girl on the dais, glaring with clear suspicion. Hiccup double-checked that nothing new had changed around the cave to distract Toothless. Nothing but the girl in the black robe, and his eyes were fixed right on her. Whatever the reason, he could see her now. Maybe she was allowing it to happen, showing herself to Toothless as she had with Hiccup.

"You came after all, Hiccup," said the girl, her voice melodic and measured, as if speaking was an art form to her. "I wasn't sure you would."

"You and me both," said Hiccup. "And you are?"

"My name must wait for later." She stood up on the dais and gestured toward the shadowed regions behind her. "We have little time before it arrives."

Hiccup had been through many adventures in his young life, many mundane, many fantastic. He'd taken on many threats as well, some dragon in nature, many more of a human quality. It was Hiccup's experience that the worst ones, the ones that gave you nightmares every time you dared remember them, were the ones where the threat defied any sensible classification.

They were the ones that were always described as _it._


	5. Proto

**Author's**** Notes**: Interesting aside: according to Internet sources, the next episode of **Dragons**: **RoB** is titled "No Country For Old Dragons." Funny thing, I have a chapter in "I Bring The Thunder" titled "No Place For Old Dragons." I'm sure they have nothing in common, but it's still kind of funny that someone on the **Dragons** staff likes to play with titles like I do.

Incidentally, I did like "No Country For Old Men," though it definitely isn't for everybody (quite dark), and certainly not for kids. And somehow I don't think we'll be seeing an assassination dragon with a bolt gun show up in the cartoon.

**Chapter Four: Proto**

The Guardian-type thing was doing the one thing that Nestor had never believed possible among the ancient war machines of the Artisan Empire: it did nothing.

It stood there on its weird legs and stared at him unblinkingly with its trio of blue light-eyes, maintaining its impersonation of a statue sculpted by an artist with a distorted sense of reality. Nestor did his own impersonation, and for many anxiety-filled seconds there was only the staring contest between Nestor and the Guardian, neither one of them budging an inch.

Nestor had never had a Guardian not launch into a vicious assault from the get-go. That was what they were made for – destroying intruders who ventured into their Shadow Halls. Like the other one, this Guardian didn't see him as a threat, or at least not one to dispose of immediately. It probably saw him as a food source, him and his barrier field. You don't kill the cow you need the milk from, after all.

Yet this one wasn't attacking.

Getting, quite literally, his second wind, Nestor felt his ire begin to grow as time ticked on by. His field was not at full strength, but he was in better shape to take on this monstrosity than before his unwanted naptime. More importantly, he was sick and tired of this depressing cave and there was obviously a way out before him. The whys didn't matter anymore; he stopped caring roughly one bout of unconsciousness ago. He needed sunshine, food, water, a decent place to rest, and to find his torn-apart family.

All that required getting past the Guardian… or going through it.

Nestor slowly stood up and shunted power to both arms, the orange flicker in the cave shifting to a redder spectrum. The Guardian adjusted its head to follow Nestor, keeping the rest of its body motionless and unresponsive. It still didn't regard him as a threat. He was about to change that.

"Okay, you son-of-a-smelter, let's get on with it." He had no plan other than plain old charging, but sometimes that worked just fine. He took the first few steps at a slow gait, waiting to see how it would react as he closed in. Surely it saw him as a threat now, and Guardians didn't exactly think out sophisticated attack patterns. They didn't have any real brains to speak of.

The Guardian finally reacted… by scurrying backward on its insect-like legs like a frightened cockroach, straight down the newly uncovered tunnel. It matched Nestor's steps, maintaining the same distance away from him as before, its neck bending to keep its head-tentacle from banging into the ceiling. It stopped and resumed its staring contest with Nestor, its legs tensing for another run.

A whirlpool of confusion swirled in Nestor's brain as he came to an abrupt halt, half-consciously keeping an eye on the Guardian while he attempted to calm his thoughts. His body was pumped for battle and it was making clear thinking difficult. He took a few cleansing breaths, relishing the ability to breathe freely again, as he sorted out what he'd just seen.

A Guardian… had retreated from him.

He had assumed that the first one had simply gotten what it needed from him but had different orders to carry out that trumped attacking intruders. That was why it didn't kill him when it had the chance. This one wasn't even trying to act like a Guardian. If he didn't know any better, it acted almost afraid of him, and Guardians didn't feel fear. They didn't have the wants and needs of flesh-and-blood creatures, no emotions, no original thought other than the orders given to them by their long-dead creators. They had no sense of self-preservation, and the only time a Guardian broke off its assault was when it was ordered to do so by a controlling force, such as when Cervantes had taken over the Monolith.

There was no point in making a Guardian that didn't guard. They always attacked. Always.

"Are you actually a Guardian?" he said to the might-be-a-Guardian. It didn't answer. Big shock. But for all the intrigue this generated, Nestor still wasn't in a very investigative mood. In fact, by fleeing from him the thing had given Nestor the solution to his current problem.

Nestor took a step forward. The Guardian took a step backward. Nestor took two, and the Guardian did likewise. Five steps for Nestor, five for the machine. It was keeping perfect distance with him, something only a calculating machine could pull off.

Always backward.

Nestor found himself giggling with relief and let his field drop back to non-combat status. As long as this thing wanted to keep its distance, he was in good shape. He might have some enigmatic company on his way out of the cavern, but it was a step up from hostile company.

* * *

Nestor walked casually into the tunnel, the Guardian leading the way. Its head monitored Nestor the entire time and yet it had no difficulty traversing the rubble along the way, its legs darting past every boulder and crack as if it had a thousand eyes covering its body.

The manmade tunnel ended after a quarter-mile of travel, and the way had been cleared well ahead of Nestor. The other Guardian had done its job well, the boulders thrown to the side or stacked up in neat clusters along the sides of the tunnel. A few odd piles of random stone pieces suggested that there had been some stone chopping in places. In a battle that pitted myssteel against stone, stone usually lost.

The tunnel ended into a larger cavern with the typical trappings reserved for ancient caverns. Stalactites and stalagmites littered the ceiling and floor like the teeth of a predator's misshapen jaw. The air was fresher here, but so was the stink, something akin to rotting plants mixed with salt spray. There was an aquatic tinge to the odor, and Nestor wondered if the sea wasn't all that far away. The stone looked plenty dry; chances were good that he was safe from any tidal water gushing his way.

It remained deadly silent in the cave, with no hint of breeze or faraway echoes or squeaky critters nesting in the crevices. Only Nestor's footsteps and the Guardian's skittering legs could be heard. The surface felt a long ways away, but now Nestor was moving toward it, and that was a hope he could cling to while he navigated this ancient tomb with a totally unpredictable and potentially dangerous war machine flanking him.

There was a path on the floor that weaved through the jungle of stalagmites. The Guardian favored this path as it used its legs to climb over and push off of the stone formations littering the ground. It had mirrored Nestor's movements continuously, never once taking its three-eyed head off him, nor had it done anything other than retreat from Nestor. Despites its non-threatening stance, Nestor felt quite uneasy having a Guardian for a traveling companion, and he kept his eyes on it as much as he could.

"Confused," Nestor said aloud, aiming his words at the skittering Guardian even though he didn't expect an answer. "I've never seen a Guardian act like you. Maybe they built you wrong, like a sword that breaks off at the hilt after three whacks."

The cavern narrowed into another tunnel, Nestor noticing more rubble scattered around bits of stone that must have gotten in the way of the first Guardian. It was nice of the ancient machine to clear a path for him, but it did beg the question of what the thing was going to do when it got out. If it was this temperamental and destructive to stone, what might it do to any innocents that got in its way?

Anticipating Nestor's traveling path, the tag-along Guardian went for the tunnel, maintaining its lead as it crunched loose rubble underneath its feet. The behavior flummoxed Nestor, for while Guardians had a few tricks when it came to combat, they never had any real talent for tactics. This one wanted to stay ahead of Nestor, as if it couldn't stand to be left behind. Smart move – Nestor figured the best way to lose the tag-along was to start a cave-in that separated the two of them, but that plot required him to switch positions with the Guardian, and it wasn't about to let him do that.

Time passed by at a snail's sprint, the minutes dragging by as Nestor kept his attention divided on the Guardian and the path before him. He talked more and more to the thing that perpetually shadowed him, mostly about his fears regarding Hiccup and Toothless, about whether Arc and Saga and the rest escaped the Repository, about how soon he could take a bath after getting out of this cursed cave. The Guardian never replied, but that didn't really matter. Nestor chatted mostly because he couldn't stand the eternal silence or the constant skittering sound coming from the Guardian. His last nerve had been thoroughly worked already, and now all he wanted was to see the sky again, whether cloudy or sunny or starlit. Then he'd be convinced that he wasn't trapped in the Underworld, awaiting one of those gods of the dead to usher him into eternity. He wasn't that worried - he didn't think the Underworld had metal servants in lieu of devils and spirits – but he wanted to see the sky just the same.

"How do they get myssteel to move like flesh and bone?" he asked. "Did they ever tell you, your masters? Hiccup learned how to shape it, but none of us know how to animate it. That'd be a fun secret to learn. Too bad it'd probably be abused, just like everything else we come up with gets abused. Arc would be saying that it's in our nature to test the limits until the limits test us back… which sounds more clever than it actually is."

…_Actually is…_

Nestor whirled around in surprise, frantically looking for the source of the unmistakable voice he just heard. It had been right in his ears, a smooth and yet disjointed voice with no echo or resonance beyond the first two softly spoken words.

"Did you hear that?" said Nestor, forgetting whom he was talking to as he searched for any motion or flicker of shadow. Beyond the Guardian, nothing stood out.

…_you hear that…_

Three more words, so close that the speaker had to be standing next to him. But the tunnel here was so narrow that even an invisible person sidling up to him had no room to spare.

…_register. Does human organism register?_

"Register?" Nestor had no idea where this was going, but now he realized that the voice wasn't right next to him, but in his head. No wonder it didn't get louder or softer.

A mental voice – telepathy. Nestor groaned as the whole routine suddenly felt very familiar. The last time he'd had a voice in his head was when he had traveled inside the Monolith and had been rudely greeted by Cervantes, who had become the brains of the doomsday war machine. _Salo krebit_, he better not be in the bowels of another Artisan project.

Then it occurred to him that he didn't have to be. He had an Artisan project walking right next to him. It had stopped as Nestor had stopped, holding position down the slim tunnel. Its blue-eyed head-tentacle seemed to be more curious than before, more focused.

_Does human organism register? _the voice repeated.

Nestor's mentor was a talking dragon, so the idea of a talking machine wasn't all that out of the ordinary. It still threw him. To placate his disbelief, he decided to go ahead and talk to the odd voice and hope it wasn't his own mind cracking apart under the stress of his circumstances.

"I can hear you, if that's what you're saying," said Nestor.

_Human organism registers. Thought processor successful. Link established, preparing for information exchange. _

There was no physical cue from the Guardian that it was speaking. No lips moving, no blinking lights or shift in its torso. It held its spot as it had been doing for the last minute. For all Nestor knew, the voice could be coming from anywhere… yet he honestly didn't think that was the case here. So when Nestor spoke again, it was directly to the Guardian.

"Is the voice I'm hearing in my head the Guardian ahead of me?"

_Affirmative. Prototype Analyzer-Class Guardian #421, designated for Transition Site Delta._

"Oo-kay." Nestor was pretty sure he had no idea what any of that meant other than it was a type of Guardian. "You talk, apparently. Do something else. Wave a tentacle for me."

_More information required to complete request._

"More information? Um… wave one of your front tentacles up and down."

_Right or left?_

"Right, why not?"

_Number of movements?_

"Seriously, you can't improvise on your own?"

_Number or movements?_ it repeated.

Nestor shook his head in growing annoyance. "Three. Do three."

The machine right-front leg immediate swept up and down in a wavy motion, as if doing the leg part of a hokey-pokey dance. Up and down, three times, and then back to the ground.

"Well, we've confirmed it's you in my head." He was surprisingly okay with this. In Nestor's book, things that talked were less scary that things that couldn't, though that didn't make them less dangerous. "Why didn't you communicate until now?"

_Human organism's language unknown. Required analysis of thought patterns to establish link. Analysis completed after 4.26 hours, success rated at 97% effectiveness._

"Thought patterns… you read my mind?"

_Incorrect. Reading of human organism consciousness unacceptable to command structure. Analyzed chemical and electrical reactions and identified patterns Projecting compatible energy relay to human organism._

"Ugg… this conversation is already starting to hurt. Let's try this – why are you following… er, leading me?"

_This unit requires assistance from human organism. Human organism displays both aggression and intention to leave Transition Site Delta, so this unit stayed in proximity to human organism until communication could be established._

Aggression and intention to leave – the thing's phrasing made Nestor feel like he'd been a bully to a machine. It didn't sound hurt, though. There was no emotion at all in its words. Nestor felt compelled to apologize just the same.

"I admit that I came on aggressive, but I was only trying to get you out of the way. I've had bad experiences with other Guardians. If you're not actually hostile, we don't have a problem."

_Human organism knows of other Guardians? Does it know of Prototype Analyzer-Class Guardian #429?_

"429? Is that the one that looks like you? It didn't make a good first impression with me, which was why I was less than friendly to you."

_Prototype Analyzer-Class Guardian #429 is conducting unacceptable actions. Communication between this unit and Prototype Anal…_

"Wait, wait, wait!" said Nestor, holding his hands in a time-out gesture. "To save on time and my sanity, we need a shorter name for this thing. Can we call it… 429? How's that?"

There was a pause as the Guardian digested the concept of a "shorter name." _Acceptable. Does human organism wish for Prototype Analyzer-Class Guardian #421 to have a shorter name also?_

"Yes," answered Nestor. "Yes I do. But let's go with something that isn't a number. I might get you and 429 mixed up. Let's see… Prototype Analyzer… Prototype…" He smiled as the perfect nickname came to him. "How about Proto? That's pretty distinguishable."

Another pause from the Guardian, almost like it was mulling over the nickname for its pros and cons. _Proto – short version of current designation. Acceptable._ _Does human organism have a shorter name?_

"I go by Nestor."

_Human organism's name changed to Human Nestor._

"Just Nestor."

_Unacceptable. Human Nestor not "just" Nestor. Human Nestor combination of complex biological functions and…_

"Fine, fine, not worth arguing," interrupted Nestor. "Just don't call me Shirley."

_Acceptable. Identification "Shirley" deemed unacceptable._

Nestor could see this was going to be a very drawn-out conversation, and all the while the surface wasn't getting any closer. "Can we continue this as we walk? I'd really like to leave this cave."

_Acceptable._ Proto began to skitter forward as it had been doing for hours. Nestor took a few steps before he dumbly realized that they didn't have to be doing this routine anymore.

"Proto, you can walk with me now. You don't have to lead me."

_Human Nestor still capable of aggression, potential of damage to this unit incalculable due to Human Nestor's barrier field._

It knew about barrier fields. It might know a lot of things from the old days, if it'd been around since the destruction of the Artisan Empire. It also had a healthy dose of mistrust. Nestor had been wondering if the mind inside Proto was like the Monolith's mind, which required a human to transfer all his thoughts and knowledge into the machine itself. A machine with a human will behind it. But if that was the case with Proto, it was a very analytical, literal, and unintuitive mind that had gotten stuck in all that steel. It acted more like something that was new to the world despite having the combined vocabulary of all the philosophers of Ancient Greece.

"Proto, I'm not going to damage you."

_Analysis of Human Nestor incomplete. Potential exists._

"The potential always exists. You take a chance on me, and I take a chance on you."

_Incorrect. Proto cannot commit assault on human organisms. Against command structure. Unacceptable._

"Really? So what happened with 429? It clearly isn't following the same rules, because it attacked me directly."

_429 has corrupted command structure._

"Well, I only got your word that you won't do the same. But I'm willing to accept that you won't, at least for now. Will you accept the same for me?"

There was a longer pause as Proto mulled over this newest idea. Nestor realized he might be inadvertently teaching Proto the concept of trust. He hoped he had said the right words, because the last thing he needed was to accidentally turn Proto into another version of 429.

Proto's answer was to advance toward Nestor, swing around him, and stake out a position a few feet behind Nestor, an impromptu marching formation. For the first time in hours, Proto's head wasn't locked on Nestor but fixed forward, watching the yawning cavern instead.

_Acceptable_.

Nestor allowed himself a little smile. It was the first thing to go right since he woke up in this Fates-abandoned cave.

* * *

Nestor's mood wasn't exactly in positive territory, but he was far more at ease with the Guardian talking to him from behind than having it silently lead him through the cave. Alas, he now had to put up with that draining feeling that came with constant conversation with a super-literal mind.

The cave grew increasing easier to navigate as the hours crawled by, the cavern widening enough that Nestor and Proto could walk side-by-side if they wanted to. The possibility never came up, though. Proto was content with following Nestor, and Nestor didn't want to go to the effort of convincing it otherwise. So they remained leader and follower.

For all the effort that went into conversing with Proto, Nestor did learn quite a bit from the machine. The discussion wasn't just informative – it was distracting. There was a deluge of anxieties and issues plaguing him – lost friends, growing threats, the basic fact that he had no idea where he was. And the worst one concerned his growing desire for water. The enhanced strength supplied by his barrier field softened the worst of the symptoms, but there was no denying his need for hydration. He'd gone two, maybe three days without water, maybe even longer. Most people would be drying up and blowing away by now, especially after exerting so hard, and he might still end up that way if his field collapsed again.

Walking and talking didn't drive away the thirst, but it was better than thinking about the rawness of his throat or the fact that he hadn't had to pee in hours.

"You called this cave a Transition Site, correct?" asked Nestor, keeping his face fixed forward. Talking directly to Proto was unnecessary – it didn't care about manners and it could hear him just fine.

_Correct_, it replied._ Transition Site Delta, enabled for T-Node traffic to and from Special Project Site._

"Special Project Site? What, the T-Node wasn't enough of a Special Project?"

_Question not understood._

"Skip it. How about this: they buried the T-Node pretty deep in this cave system. Were the Artisans supposed to walk out of here every time?"

_Incorrect. Transition Site chosen for security reasons. T-Node network designated top secret, created for quick transition to multiple locations designated as critical to Artisan war interests. Cave egress used as emergency route in case T-Node network failed. Engineers deployed secondary T-Node devices to allow travel directly to Special Project Site. Secondary devices lacked range of primary T-Nodes._

"So this cave was a waypoint for travelers on the T-Node network. Can't say I like the décor, but I guess beggars can't be choosy. Otherwise I'd be dead at the bottom of the ocean."

_Correct. You are currently fully functional and nowhere near the bottom of the ocean._

Nestor sighed helplessly. Humor, even bad humor, was lost on Proto. "So what was your purpose, exactly?"

_This unit designed to aid travelers in transition as well as conduct maintenance and security of Transition Site._

"Ah, so you were a Jack-of-all-Trades type of Guardian. Is that why you're a friendlier class of machine?"

_Question not understood._

Nestor thought about how to phrase it better. "The other Guardians I've encountered… well, fought… were designed to be monstrous and intimidating. You're designed like a… lump."

_Human Nestor refers to this unit's physical form, correct?_

"Correct."

_Form is metamorphic by design. Allows for adaptability in conducting multiple tasks including refuse clearing, mold removal, pest reduction, excavation, grime disposal…_

"Yes, yes, got it. Here's a better question: what happened to 429 to make it attack me?"

Yet another pause before Proto's answer. Nestor noticed that questions that didn't have definite answers made Proto pause while it sorted out its response. It must have difficulty with subjective responses. Nestor didn't think his question had been that perplexing, but maybe Proto didn't really know the answer.

_Proto will relate what it has recorded to this point. Definitive answer unknown._

"Whatever you can tell me, then," suggested Nestor.

_This unit and 429 were designated to Transition Site Delta two standard years before Directive Omega issued. 429 had same command structure as Proto: assist travelers through T-Node, maintain site, protect from intrusion. Then Directive Omega was issued by Artisan Authority – all travel to Site Delta suspended._

"Why?"

_Reason unknown. Directive Omega is security directive, issued only when Site's probability of compromise by hostile forces is significant. After order issued, all travelers from Special Project Site recalled to their home base. T-Node locked down in ceiling containment. This unit and 429 continued operations until network shutdown occurred._

"Network shutdown? That doesn't sound good."

_Six standard months after Directive Omega issued, this unit registered the loss of Network Control. Reasons unknown, circumstances unknown. T-Node network no longer online. T-Node itself remained operational._

Nestor had a good guess about that. "That's probably when the Artisan Empire exploded. Their home continent pretty much ceased to exist."

Proto paused again. It probably hadn't realized its creators were all gone until now. _Proto calculated possibility. Had no corroborating evidence until present. Destruction of Artisan Empire most likely conclusion based on length of inactivity from T-Node and from engineers._

"I'm sorry, Proto."

_Statement not understood. Why is Human Nestor sorry?_

"Just human sentimentality. Keep going."

_Command structure dictated to secure Transition Site should network fail and no engineers are present to issue orders. This unit and 429 sealed secondary entrance and awaited network reinstatement. To date, network still down, though individual T-Node retains power._

"And I'm thankful for that." So now he knew how and why the tunnel was sealed. Diligent work from a pair of busybody machines.

_After one standard year, no communication from Artisan commanders was recorded. This unit and 429 analyzed circumstances, created survival plan. Powercores within this unit and 429 not same model as conventional Guardians; energy output less, reservoirs reduced. Slow drain in process, rendering unit nonfunctional in 12,113 standard years._

"Right, got to think ahead," Nestor said sarcastically. Nestor had trouble planning his life a week ahead of schedule. Twelve thousand years?

_This unit and 429 concluded that one unit must remain operational in case network or engineer returned. The other would power down to minimal activity, cease analysis routine until signal given by active unit to return to full operation._

"I get it. One of you… 'slept' while the other kept an eye on the cave. Clever."

_This plan would lengthen unit survival to three times normal powercore lifespan. In addition, both units created protection around bodies to reduce effect of environmental deterioration. Command agreement was to power down for one year, remain active the next._

"So that's why you two were in those rock cocoons. You were sleeping and waking up every year. You really kept that up for twenty-thousand years?"

_Incorrect. Pattern went as Human Nestor described for 1,000 standard years after decision was made. That is Proto's final memory before this day. Conclusion: Proto has been at minimal operational capacity for over 19,000 standard years._

Nestor stopped and faced Proto for once. This wasn't something he could walk and talk about. "Proto, are you saying that 429 has been active for eons… all by itself?"

_Evidence suggests such a conclusion. No signal was issued by 429 to reactivate. Reason for 429 failing to send signal - unknown._

"Shouldn't it be out of power?"

_Based on 429's actions, evidence suggests 429 is nearly out of power and is seeking alternate sources. _

Nestor glanced as his right arm, the glowing one he was using to light the way. "429 attacked me and siphoned off all the field energy I had at the time. I doubt I was a very good meal. Is that why it took the T-Node?"

Proto was silent as it collected its thoughts, then looked at Nestor for a change. _Analysis: 429 low on power due to constant operational status. 429 capable of absorbing compatible energy from other sources. 429 went after Human Nestor as barrier field is compatible. 429 went after T-Node because powercore within T-Node is compatible. Both actions conflict with standing command structure to not assault human organisms and to protect T-Node. Conclusion: 429 has corrupted command structure._

Nestor had figured out most of Proto's linguistic differences over the course of their time together. "Command structure" was apparently the set of rules Proto abided by, like a code of honor that Proto couldn't break. Even though Proto didn't seem capable of becoming aghast, he came as close as mechanically possible to the emotion when the topic of defying his command structure came up. If Proto was to be believed, it was impossible for the machine to deviate from his command structure. Yet 429, a machine built on the same principles as Proto, was doing just that.

"What does it mean to have a corrupted command structure?" he asked.

_Analyzer-class Guardians based on constant analysis. This unit continuously assesses self, Human Nestor, environment, and other priority subjects as required. Probability of 99.98% that analysis will continue within established command structure, but probability allows for potential corruption over sustained periods of analysis. If conclusion referring to 429's length of operation is correct, 429 may have incurred error at unknown point in its operation. Error would lead to faulty conclusions, which would lead to other faulty conclusions. At this date, it can be concluded that 429's corruption has to be severe to ignore high-priority commands regarding the assaulting of human organisms. _

Nestor didn't say it out loud, as he didn't think Proto would understand, but Proto's description of 429's "corruption" sounded like the process a healthy mind might go through as it descended into madness. Proto was a thinking machine, not the same as a human mind but strikingly close in places, and it stood to reason that 429 worked the same. Perhaps the "error" in question kept 429 from signaling Proto to wake up, and it just kept on analyzing for eons upon eons.

If a human was left alone for over nineteen thousands years, with only the silent rocks and the swirling dust for company… Wouldn't that drive anyone, or anything, completely mad?

Nestor resumed his walking as a nervous shiver ran down his spine. He didn't think he needed another reason to get out of this cave, but he managed to find a new one anyway.

"Can 429 be saved?" he asked quietly. "Can we fix it?"

_Negative. Without an engineer to conduct repairs, 429 will remain in this state until nonfunctional._

"And there are no more engineers. Which means I may have let a crazed machine out of its cage." As if he didn't have enough guilt weighing him down. "So if 429 has to signal you before you woke… became operational… why are you operational now?"

_This unit is now active due to disappearance of T-Node. Node sends out low-energy pulse monitored by this unit. Lack of pulse triggered operational status. Emergency command structure initiated. 429 carries the T-Node. T-Node must be recovered._

"But what's the point, Proto? The network is down and we can't use it to teleport anywhere."

_Human Nestor incorrect. 429 could use it to self-teleport._

Nestor didn't want to stop again, but this bit of news forced him to do so. "You said the network was down."

_Correct. Direct control of teleportation impossible without network. But this unit and 429 capable of connecting to T-Node in emergency situations as back-up Control Networks. Can do Node-to-Node teleport, as well as track recent usage of T-Nodes._

He faced Proto with a face riddled with fear and hope, two conflicting emotions battling for supremacy. "You can work the T-Node?"

_Correct, as can 429._

Hope gained the upper hand for once, and the weigh on Nestor's shoulders suddenly felt ten times lighter. "_Salo krebit, _we need to get moving. I need the T-Node back. It's the only way I'm going to find Hiccup and Toothless."

He shunted power to his legs and was about to charge down the tunnel when an annoyingly inconvenient caveat came to him. He sighed out his frustration and turned to Proto. "429 must have a pretty good lead on us. You wouldn't happen to know how to track it, would you?"

_Tracking 429 currently. Node energy leaking traceable elements. This unit can track elements._

Nestor felt his emotional mishmash face returning, only with a dash of annoyance thrown in. "Feel free to volunteer information like this at any time."

Proto stared back at him blankly. _This unit not designed to volunteer._

* * *

The slim beam of sunlight caressing the ceiling of the cavern was possibility the most beautiful thing Nestor had ever seen in his life.

Of course, that was probably the panic, starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion talking, but it was still a lovely thing to see after untold hours bumping and tripping around in the dark.

This part of the cave was set on an incline, making the going harder as the stones here were slicker, smoothed out by what little moisture had found its way into the cave over the millennia. That, plus the occasional slap of wind in the face or the salty smell of ocean water wafting past Nestor's nose, was all the evidence Nestor need to believe that the entrance was nigh.

Even with his field-enhanced strength, Nestor found the going tough. The tunnel was wider but handholds were fewer, Nestor's boots threatening to slip out from under him with every step. But with a little cajoling, Proto assisted Nestor by acting as a safety harness, Nestor grabbing Proto's head-tentacle for support while the Guardian moved them up the tunnel, its pincher-feet digging into the cavern walls like fingernails gouging a wedge of cheddar.

The air took a turn for the frigid, but it felt glorious to Nestor. He was almost out, almost free. He didn't care what lay beyond the entrance. As long as it wasn't another cave, he could deal.

Near the top of tunnel, he reached out and placed his hand in the beam of sunlight. Fresh warmth graced his skin. Real sunlight, along with the crashing reverberation of real waves and real wind at almost deafening volume. Ocean sounds – he had to be right next to it.

One final push by Proto and they were up to flat ground, the cave giving way to open sky and a precipitous drop into blue-green water frothing on the rocks dozens of feet below. Nestor told Proto to halt for now as he closed his eyes and basked in his generous return to the surface world, the afternoon sun pitted against the frosty breeze. Bumpy thunderhead clouds massed all over the sky, threatening to eventually rob Nestor of his hard-won sunlight.

He wanted to cry in relief at escaping his premature entombment, but that required more relief than he had in him. For one thing, the ocean stretched out onto all horizons without break or obstruction. While his vantage point was incomplete, his impression of his surroundings was that of an island that was mostly mountain, and a long, thin one at that. White streaks across the rocks implied that sea birds used this place as a roost, but none flew about in the sky or rested on the boulders below. It had to be too cold for your average bird, and Nestor's elation proved an inadequate blanket for the temperature as he began to hug himself.

Then he spied a little waterfall running down the rock face, one of several that were little more than vertical streams falling to earth. Rain, dew, snowmelt – he didn't care as long as it was drinkable.

He reached out to one of the waterfalls with a cupped hand and got a dose of ice water for his troubles. And it tasted amazing. Giving into his body's long-delayed demands, his hands shot out over and over, bringing precious water to his chapped lips. By the time his thirst was slated, his hands had gone numb and the clouds had taken away the sunshine. A proper tradeoff, all things considered.

Proto didn't have such needs as Nestor, the machine using the time to stick its head out of the cave. It elongated its neck and began a wide survey of their new surroundings, stopping at times when it spotted something that required an extra second of analyzing before resuming its survey.

"Is this the first time you've seen the surface, Proto?" asked Nestor, rubbing his hands together to get the feeling back.

It didn't answer Nestor's question, obviously too busy gathering information. But if it was thrown by the surface world, a place it couldn't have seen in eons, if at all, it didn't show it. Nestor decided to let it do what it needed to, stepping back further into the cave to avoid the frigid wind and hugging himself some more.

Once Proto was satisfied, it swung its three eyes to Nestor and looked him over in an up-and-down fashion. _Human Nestor's body temperature fluctuating,_ Proto beamed into his head.

"It's a wee bit nippy out here," said Nestor. "We're not in the Mediterranean Sea, that's for sure."

_Unable to discern global location from current landmarks. _Proto sounded almost confused, like it had expected something different.

"It's been twenty thousand years, Proto. A lot of things can change in that time."

With the happy moment utterly spent, Nestor did his own analyzing of the surroundings. The cliff was pretty sheer. He might survive a fall from this height, but there was nothing but surf and rocks to break his fall. And then what, start swimming? Look around the island for raft-making materials? Use Proto as a lifeboat?

No sense in panicking yet. He couldn't see the rest of the island from here. Maybe his prospects were better than they looked. First thing to do was climb up and…

_429's trace headed north by northwest,_ spoke Proto. It helpfully pointed a tentacle in the indicated direction.

Nestor looked and saw lots of churning water but no flashy myssteel machines that direction. 429 must have taken off into the sea already. "Can you guys swim?"

_Body too dense for floatation._

"So is it walking on the ocean floor?"

_Why would 429 need to perform such action?_

"Well, what other option is there?"

Nestor thought he had said the wrong thing at first, as Proto proceeded to squeeze past Nestor and throw himself off the cliff and into the air, as if satisfying an urge for recreational cliff diving. For a horrible moment, Nestor wondered if Proto was demonstrating its own variety of corrupted command structure and that he was about to be abandoned all over again.

Except Proto didn't fall. He abjectly refused to fall, hovering in front of the cave entrance with its legs dangling beneath it like lifeless cobwebs. It spun its lumpy torso around in midair as its legs rewound back into its body. Soon it looked like a flying metallic, misshapen tortoise with no limbs and an extra-long neck, Proto staring at Nestor expectantly.

Nestor blurted out a quick laugh of foolish astonishment. He'd witnessed the Monolith send out hundreds of these types of things two months ago, and chances were good that the reason they could fly wasn't due to their aerodynamic qualities. But most Guardians didn't have flight capabilities, so Nestor had assumed Proto was grounded. He was happy to be wrong.

_Human Nestor incapable of flight_, said Proto. _This unit will transport Human Nestor. _

"I… I like this arrangement."

Proto closed in to allow Nestor to jump aboard, Nestor finding a sweet spot near Proto's "neck" where he could sit without discomfort or fear of sliding off. Nestor swore he felt Proto's body shift slightly under him, as if molding a proper seat for Nestor. The idea made Nestor laugh again. If he could expect this kind of service from now on, he'd never fly on Arc's spiky spine again.

Proto wanted to go straight after 429, but Nestor explained that he was running on empty in terms of food and that they could at least circle the island to see if anything was edible. Proto allowed for this and took Nestor for a quick tour of the island they'd emerged from, emphasis on quick.

The island really was nothing more than a small mountain in the middle of the ocean. There was no place for rainwater to pool or plants to grow, no wildlife living on the slopes or flying on the breeze. Proto's Transition Site must have been another undersea cavern built into this inhospitable island. As out-of-the-way went, it was perfect, but in terms of nourishment and survival, just looking at the island made Nestor's stomach grumble in pain.

Nestor told Proto to forget it and follow the trail, and the machine did so. There was no sense of motion or vibration as Proto accelerated, unlike what happened when you sat on a dragon's back. Soon the waves were flowing by at a dizzying rate, not quite as impressive as when Toothless went about it but still impressive.

Nestor hugged himself once more and considered the future as the familiar exhilaration of flight faded and all his pressing concerns came flooding in. Going further north didn't exactly thrill Nestor, not if it was already freezing cold and likely to get freezier as time went on. However, Proto didn't have such a problem and the machine could probably keep up the pursuit to the end of days. If they weren't careful, Proto might end up with a human icicle on its back before long.

His stomach was rebelling and he was already close to exhausted. Again, Proto didn't have those limitations. Neither did 429, who probably had the same flight speed limits and the same lack of restrictions as Proto. Unless 429 stopped at some point, this chase might go on forever. Nestor couldn't. He had to hope that an insane machine might just be insane enough to sabotage itself.

Tired but determined, Nestor forced himself to stay awake as Proto flew off into the barren horizon. He spaced out instead, trying not to think of mutton jerky or how good a beef-and-bacon sandwich would feel in his mouth or how much he missed that misfit bunch of adventurers that had become his family. That's why he didn't recognize the few islands gracing the ocean in the distance, tall spire-like formations or empty sandbars that disappeared at high tide, or even the tiny island with a few evergreen trees that were surviving despite the odds, an island that should've been remarkably familiar to Nestor, as he'd been there before. He noticed them, but didn't put it all together until later.

That's why he failed to understand why he was suffering from an unshakeable feeling of déjà vu.


	6. Not Your Traditional Fish-Bait Variety

**Chapter Five: Not Your Traditional Fish-Bait Variety**

Hiccup felt like a brainless mouse that was standing in front of a cat-hole, waiting for the hungry cat to show itself. A bit of cosmic-irony where the prey waited for the predator to emerge instead of vice-versa. He knew, without a doubt, that something terrible was about to come out of that cave. This was how his life worked, after all.

The girl's smile suggested she didn't feel likewise. Still perched on her dais like a happy little sacrifice, she looked down at Hiccup with reassuring eyes. "Such fear in your eyes. Surely the Dragon Rider has faced worse threats and come out the better."

"I tend to come out the better when I know more about the threat I face," he rebutted. He boarded Toothless and attached his harness while gesturing to the girl to come down off her dais. "Let's not be here right now."

"But I must be here," she replied, again with the calm grin. "It is my duty, to my people and to the world."

"What? What does that mean?"

"One way or another, it must return to its slumber. Whether by my sacrifice or your efforts, this must occur."

Nestor let loose a groan of exasperation. "Lady, I don't do sacrifices and I don't sit around in front of caves waiting for _it_ to show up. Come with me." It occurred to him as he finished speaking that he was asking a spirit to come with him like she was a real person. Yet she seemed so real, though, and what else could he offer her but an escape?

The girl quietly went back to bowing her head with her eyes closed, her determination undeterred. "My place is here. You may choose to face what is coming or to flee if you wish, but my fate is sealed."

Right then, Toothless's ears perked up, his head snapping toward a distant sound in the cave. A low growl vibrated through him, aggravating Hiccup's seriously-frayed nerves. He tried listening for ominous clues coming from the cave, heavy breathing or ground-pounding footfalls or something licking its chops in hunger, and at first he didn't pick up anything.

But then it came to him; a low rushing tapping, like a woodpecker drilling into the bark of a tree. Then a second woodpecker joined in a second later. Then it was a trio. Then a fourth made it a quartet. On and on, every second brought more of the insane tapping into focus until it was a virtual army of cave-tappers tapping their lives away.

Toothless instinctively intensified his growling and arched his back. Hiccup couldn't identify what could be making the insane noise, but it was getting louder and thus getting closer. The cave was about to spew forth something, and he wasn't about to stick around to welcome it.

"It is almost here," said the girl. "Make your choice, Dragon Rider."

He had, but he didn't think the girl with the martyr complex was going to like it.

"Toothless, fetch," he ordered, pointing at the girl.

The dragon leaped into the air, deftly collided against the closest cavern wall and rebounded to the girl on the dais. She offered no resistance as Toothless grabbed her under the armpits and launched straight up, out of the cave and out of the gap. The wind immediately assailed them, bits of sand greeting them with its abrasive touch as they left the safety of the gap, but Hiccup found it preferable to waiting to be lunch.

Hiccup felt very out-of-sorts right then, mostly because his rescue attempt had actually worked. Toothless should've passed through her, the expected result when trying to physically rescue your average spirit. He had already decided to flee from the cave, but not without trying to save the girl. The fact that he _had _saved her meant only one thing.

The girl was no spirit. She was flesh and blood… and that made all this twice as confusing as before. He could get behind the idea of a spirit playing tricks on him, but not crazy weirdness in real time.

"You're real," he yelled to the girl, though it was unlikely she could hear him right now.

"You can't do this," the girl called out from beneath Toothless. "You don't understand. I must be there, or the Wyrm will escape."

Hiccup ignored her for now and kept his eyes on the gap as Toothless circled above it. She had called it the Wyrm, which brought up images of creepy crawlies in bait barrels that fishermen used to catch fish. Not his favorite kind of animal, but worms were low on his list of nightmare fuel.

Then again, what kind of worm tapped its way to the surface?

The answer came in the form of a speeding mound of flesh that erupted out of the cave like honey squeezed from a warm honeycomb. The mound shifted upward, climbing the rock face like it was on fire. A worm it was, but far more than that, much to Hiccup's renewed horror. It had to be almost as wide as the cave it had emerged from, its mottled flesh gray and pale with fleshy bands ringing the beast at regular intervals. Streaks of some kind of wet substance adorned its surface. The head of the thing, the Wyrm, was mostly a tube-like orifice that contained several cluttered rows of grinding teeth that circled back and forth, each set moving independent of each other. The head met a man-sized boulder on its way up the rock face, the rock disappearing in the terrifying mouth and breaking into hundreds of smaller rocks within seconds. It had the same love of grinding minerals that Gronckles exhibited, only on a bigger scale.

The insane tapping filled the air around it, and Hiccup could now see why. The Wyrm didn't scoot or wriggle like a worm should. Battalions of beetle-like legs were attached to its sides, the legs working in tandem to push the creature along, undulating in wave-like patterns as the Wyrm advanced up the hill.

In less than twenty seconds, the Wyrm's head had reached the peak of the hill, angling its sightless head in Toothless's direction. The dragon nervously snapped at it, even though they were a good hundred feet above it. Hiccup felt like snapping himself, though his version of snapping involved fainting and passing out. The creature had climbed at least a couple hundred feet up a stone hill in no time flat… _and it hadn't completely cleared the cave yet._

"The Wyrm emerges," the girl cried out, actual emotion in her voice.

"I can see that," replied Hiccup. "Toothless, convince it that we're not on the menu today."

Toothless did so with his standing opening argument – a pair of blue fireballs speeding into the rock underneath the Wyrm's head. A blast of flying rock and licking heat coated the creature from below, its head rearing back and shaking violently. Hiccup was pleased to see the creature wasn't thrilled with fire. This might not be such a headache after all.

Then the creature righted itself and aimed its mouth right at them. From its mouth, a cone-shaped blast of sand flew out into the air, a miniature sandstorm localized around Toothless and company. Hiccup heard the girl scream and Toothless whimper as a flood of flying particles pelted them all, Toothless going into a quick dive to escape the worst of the sand blast. Hiccup covered his eyes and silently prayed that Toothless wouldn't smash them into the dunes as he braced against the whipping touch of the sand blast.

Toothless soon outraced the Wyrm's sand attack and banked away from the rock sanctuary, getting some welcome distance between them and the creature. Hiccup cleared the moist sand from his body and tried to dig out the saddle linkup from the pile of sand coating it. The rudder's response time began to slow with all that sand clogging the mechanism. He needed to land and clean it before it jammed up completely.

"Toothless, is she okay?" he asked the dragon, who was too busy sputtering and spitting sand to waggle or shake his head. Then Hiccup heard the girl cursing in some guttural language, so he assumed she wasn't too bad off. But he needed her out of the way before he could combat the Wyrm directly.

Hiccup looked behind him and saw the Wyrm facing them from its perch on the hill. Despite not having any eyes of note, the Wyrm seemed to know where Toothless was approximately, its head tracking the dragon's movements as they speed away. Hiccup no longer thought this was a simple-minded beast; definitely not the same as the traditional fish-bait variety of worm back home. There was deliberateness in its hesitation, as if it was debating whether or not to pursue its escaping sacrifice.

Then it began to climb down the hill, its army of legs propelling it straight down as easily as it had ascended. In the length of several breaths, it reached the bottom of the hill and left the solid footing of the stones to enter the sand dunes on the opposite side of the rock sanctuary. . But instead of pursuing Toothless across the sands, it acted suddenly disinterested in its prey and headed off in a northern direction. It slid through the sand like a sea serpent through the ocean, undulating along the surface and plowing through the pale dunes, its legs flinging tuffs of sand out to the side.

Its hideous length had an end point, and like a regular-sized worm it tapered off into a round bottom. The monstrous chorus of tapping faded as it cleared the rock formation, the full length of the creature measuring three hundred feet or more. While not as bulky as Red Death, it certainly had the former Hyperion monster dragon beat in terms of yardage.

Out of immediate danger, Hiccup had Toothless circle back to the stone hills and land on the crest of the tallest one. Upon dismounting from Toothless, Hiccup received another mini-sandstorm when the dragon shook free the sand on his scales, but Hiccup was so focused on the mystery not-a-spirit girl, who was gently and calmly smoothing out her robes like the previous minute of her life only ranked a mere inconvenience, that he barely felt the sand hit him. He had enough presence of mind to keep an eye on the Wyrm as it fled across the desert, though at the rate it was going it would be out of sight within a matter of minutes.

"Lady, are you touched in the head?" he blurted out testily. "Are you trying to get yourself eaten? If Toothless and I hadn't come along…"

"Then I would have been sacrificed, and my village would be safe," she answered in her infuriatingly calm tone.

"What? Sacrifice? Okay, we're well past the point where you should have explained things."

The girl glanced out at the fleeing Wyrm as if she was afraid of losing track of it. "This is how my people have satisfied the Wyrm for generations. Every ten years, one of us must make the trek to this location, to the cave where the Wyrm abides. In our sacrifice, the Wyrm is satisfied and returns to its slumber under the earth."

"Your people threw you to this creature?" Even though Vikings weren't the most pleasant of people, your typical Viking clan wasn't big on human sacrifice, and it shocked Hiccup that any tribe would stoop to such a horrible practice.

"I came of my own free will," the girl replied. "I walked the sands for three days to reach this place, and I placed myself on the ceremonial dais. To save one's village is to perform the ultimate act of selflessness, and thus you are remembered for all time." Her face acquired worry lines as she watched the Wyrm grow smaller and smaller in the distance. "You deprived it of what it wanted. Now it races off to find an alternative."

"But… it's massive, and you're not. There's no way it could make a meal of you."

"It doesn't want a meal, Dragon Rider. It lives on the rocks of the earth. But it wants to be worshiped, to be remembered. My ancestors made a deal with it centuries ago – spare the many for the price of a few. Now, in anger, it will seek out my village for retribution."

Hiccup wanted to argue how senseless that sounded. Again, his Viking heritage taught him to oppose monsters, not placate them. But after seeing the size of the Wyrm and sensing that it wasn't a mindless eating machine, maybe there was no way to fight something like that if you didn't have dragons or a giant fishhook at your disposal.

"But if you were going to sacrifice yourself, why did you want me to stand with you? Why did you call to me? _How _did you call to me? I saw you in my dreams, and I saw your footprints appear out of nowhere."

"The footprints aren't really there, Dragon Rider. I put them in your mind so that you would find this place. I did it the same way I called to you in your sleep."

"You say that so casually. Are you and your people… human?"

The girl faced him again, those kind eyes of hers putting him at ease despite the numerous and varied reasons he had to stay anxious. "We are few, but we have abilities that some might say makes us more than human. We find sanctuary out in the Desolation, in a hidden place away from others who would judge us a threat. Alas, we share it with the Wyrm, but the Wyrm is reasonable compared to the minds of humans. As to why I wanted you with me…"

She lowered her eyes and seemed to grow insecure. "I confess, Dragon Rider, that I don't really wish to die like this. I felt your presence arrive two days ago, a mystery that I would have desired to explore had I the luxury of time. I saw your mind as you slept, learned of you and your magnificent dragon. " She gestured at Toothless, who was rubbing off the more stubborn sand deposits on his scales by scraping his body on the rocks near him. "We have a legend that talks of how the Wyrm fled to the Desolation out of fear of dragonkind. I hoped that his presence might sway the Wyrm into returning to its lair and thus spare my life. Now I know better."

The story sounded good, yet Hiccup couldn't help but feel like the unluckiest guy in the world. "How do I do it? How do I keep running across every oversized monster in the world?"

"Sorry?" The girl seemed perplexed by his attitude.

"Let's just say that you've caught me at a rather bad moment in my life." Hiccup didn't feel at all heroic right now, and part of him was practically livid at the idea of going back into action when all he wanted to do was get out of the desert and find a cold, wet place to be miserable. Let someone else save the day. He'd done his part already, and he was paying for it dearly.

That livid part of him couldn't shout past the better part of him, though. The part of him that saw the girl as someone unique and special, who didn't deserve to have her life cut short no matter how vital it was to her people's well-being. The part of him that knew a monster no matter how big and wormy it might be. The part of him… that knew that Astrid would've kicked his rear until it fell off for turning his back on someone in need.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"You may call me Valha."

Hiccup hid his surprise under his tired, sand-covered face. That name… of all the names in existence, she had that one? What were the odds, especially in a land where names were more rare than raindrops?

"Okay, Valha. I don't know if we can stop the Wyrm with just one dragon, but we're not going to sit back and let it destroy your people. And if we can't stop it, we can get ahead of it and warn your people. But the deal is that I'm not about to let you sacrifice yourself to it as an alternative."

"There may be no other…"

"_That is the deal!_" said Hiccup, and he said it so forcefully that Valha backed up a step. "Got it?' Valha nodded unsurely, but not unhappily.

After inspecting the rudder linkup and cleaning it as best as he could in the spate of twenty seconds, Hiccup mounted Toothless and gave Valha a hand up. She took to the rear saddle seat without complaint, or even any emotion, despite the fact that it had to be her first time riding on a dragon. She gripped Hiccup around the waist, forcing Hiccup to push away a barrage of remembrances he couldn't afford to dwell on right now. Her touch also dispelled what remaining doubt he had about how real she was – she certainly _felt_ real.

Toothless sped into the air and went after the Wyrm, which remained visible due to the geysers of flying sand left in its wake. It traveled the sands like a longboat plowed through choppy seas, but Toothless was still the champ in terms of top speed and he soon gained on the monstrous earthworm.

As the sharp anticipation of battle set in, Hiccup found his thoughts focused less on coming up with a successful dragon versus mega-worm strategy and more on how lonely he felt now. He was used to going into a fight not just as a rider and his dragon, but as a team of like-minded individuals skilled in their respective talents. He trusted Nestor and Saga to handle the ground game, Arc to be a fierce wingman… er, wingdragon, in the air… and Astrid to always have his back. And they were all gone, scattered to the Four Winds… or worse.

He even missed the earlier days, flying in loose formation and looser discipline with his Hooligan friends around the skies of Berk. Snotlout and Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut – the first dragon riders and arguably the best ones. Despite the omnipresent dysfunction that permeated the group, he always could count on them when the hatchets started flying.

As the Wyrm loomed larger and larger before him, he thought little of strategy and instead said a Norse prayer of well-wishing for all his friends, old and new. They had to be doing better than he was, because it was hard to imagine them doing _worse._

* * *

In a different part of the world, a far colder and wetter land that Hiccup knew all too well, there existed a tiny drop of land on the ocean that graced the waters the same way a mole might intrude on the face of a fairy-tale princess. The tiny island always disappeared when the ice flows moved south in the winter, swallowing it up neatly. The Berkians called it Last Gasp and used it as a barometer for how soon winter would set in over their own frostbitten island.

It did have other uses, such as allowing four teenage Vikings a final breather from the cooped-up lifestyle they would soon be experiencing all winter long.

"You know, this kinda bites," said Snotlout, sitting against a driftwood log and impatiently poking the burning wood in the fire pit with his shabby club as if the fire wasn't doing its job properly. The daylight was clouded and insufficient – the fire existed to keep their hands from falling off due to the chill. Good thing they had a squat hill to block off the western winds that would otherwise turn them into living ice sculptures, fire or no fire.

"We remembered the wood this time," said Fishlegs, sitting on the same log and rubbing his hands in front of the fire. "I told you it would work better than using rocks."

"Yeah, great," said Snotlout. "Instead of being bored and cold, we're just bored."

"You're the one who picked this place out," said Tuffnut, sitting next to his sister, Ruffnut, on a separate driftwood log. The logs had been transplanted from the ocean to Last Gasp via Monstrous Nightmare, as the only other sitting accommodations the little island offered involved saltwater and snow.

But it also offered privacy, allowing impatient teenagers a measure of independence if you were willing to numb your fanny in the process. The Dragon Squad was used to such wintry conditions. Snow graced Berk nine months of the year to some degree and the thin crust of white that covered all of Last Gasp paled in comparison to the massive drifts that blanketed the village in the deep winter months. But they did like to stick to the pebbled-beach part of the island, where the high tide washed the snow away.

"You said, 'we need our own place away from the prying eyes of fuddy-duddy elders'," continued Tuffnut at Snotlout. "If I'd known we'd be sitting around the whole time, I would've stayed in bed."

"It's too cold to go flying right now," said Fishlegs. "Chomps has a tender nose that gets frostbite easily."

Chomps, Fishlegs's Gronckle, along with Fenrir the Nightmare and Barf-Belch the Zippleback (a name the twins _finally _came to an agreement about after many black eyes, not that they could agree on which name belonged to which head), were dozing behind the young Vikings in little makeshift nests on top of the island's sole hill, which was little more than an oversized mound of dirt that hid the western side of the island from the Viking campers. The dragons liked to sleep a lot in the winter, though most of them weren't hibernators by nature. Getting them to fly became less fun and more chore-like as winter progressed, and chores were always frowned upon; hence the camping.

Snotlout sighed. "Face it, we're the wussiest Vikings ever. How am I suppose to prove my manhood when we end up befriending every dragon we come across and making peace with all our enemies?"

"I think the Scauldron we buzzed a few weeks back is still ticked at us," offered Tuffnut. "You could try your luck with him."

"Actually, Scauldrons have pretty bad memories," stated Fishlegs. "There was this one story about how…"

"Don't care, move on," griped Snotlout.

"We could play back-end dragon fire again," suggested Tuffnut. "I've been saving it up since this morning."

"You save it up?" said Snotlout.

"You never know when it'll come in handy. Not like it'll matter. Fishlegs always wins."

"I can't help it if my digestive system is bigger than everybody else's," Fishlegs meekly defended.

"It's bigger than all of us _combined_," replied Tuffnut.

There was a curious component missing from the proceedings, and Tuffnut realized it was his sister's biting candor. He never got past three complete sentences before she chimed in. By the Gods, he might actually have to look her direction.

He did so and saw something that almost shattered his sanity. Ruffnut's legs were bent and her eyes were contentedly focused on an object resting upon them. The object in question was scroll-paper bound up in leather, a weirdly boring object that didn't exist in Tuffnut's household. Yet one of those things had somehow materialized on Ruffnut's lap… and she was _reading _it.

Too blown away to address his sister directly, Tuffnut turned his horrified eyes toward Snotlout and Fishlegs. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The two Vikings exchanged glances, surprised at Tuffnut's surprise. "Uh…" stammered Snotlout, "we thought you knew, considering you two spend every minute together."

With the others of no help to him, Tuffnut finally turned to his sister, who was quite happy to utterly ignore him. "Ruff, is that what I think it is?"

Ruffnut didn't bother to look up, but the irritation was thick in her voice. "Considering how little thinking you do, I'm not surprised you're asking that question."

He couldn't stand it any longer. He reached over and yanked the book from Ruffnut's hands, standing up and dancing back a few steps to avoid the predictable protest and lashing out from his sister.

"Hey! Give that back!" she ordered as she got to her feet.

"A book," said Tuffnut, holding it like it was a rabid lamb trying to bite him. "Where'd this come from?"

"I've had it for… a while." Ruffnut's indignation waned as she noticed the eyes of her friends, all of them wondering if she'd been switched out with a clever look-alike. "It's a first edition print I got from the last trade ship."

"First edition… what? Ruff, we made a pact that we would never learn a single thing in life, and that included reading."

"We were _five_."

"Right, and we've done pretty good since then. What is this about, anyway?"

"It's a… story about… how two people go around wrecking the lives of everyone around them."

"I think I know that one," said Fishlegs.

"That sounded suspiciously like it's the opposite of what you just said," accused Tuffnut to his sister. He then noticed a piece of leather in the pages and assumed that was a bookmark. He flipped the book open and began reading the first paragraph on the page aloud.

"Belvus pulled Nella into his encircling arms. She could feel the hot touch of his breath on her skin, and it made her blush in anticipation. 'Oh, Belvus, I never thought I could love a man like you,' she exclaimed, her heart twittering in her chest. He gently pulled her face toward his and _WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS, RUFF?"_

"Sounds like a romance epic," explained Fishlegs. "I hear it's popular with female readership."

"Really?" asked Snotlout. "How popular?"

"_Very_ popular," said Fishlegs.

"If you guys are done being stupid, can I have my book back now?" said Ruffnut.

"Romance epic," spat out Tuffnut, tossing the book back to his sister. "Who are you and what did you do with my sister?"

"Excuse me for not wanting to sit around while you guys invent new forms of boredom." She placed her book carefully into her personal satchel, taking care to check that her bookmark was still in its correct spot.

"It's not just the book," said Tuffnut. "You haven't wanted to go yak-tipping in weeks, you joined a class in pottery-making, and I'm pretty sure those flowers in your room aren't there because you're waiting for them to rot and smell up the house."

"So I'm branching out," said Ruffnut. "Big whoop."

"Forget branching out. It's like you've joined a completely different family tree."

"Can you blame me? The old one's got rot."

"Yeah, that's what makes us great! Low expectations!"

The argument soon became the traditional Ruff-Tuff conversation with insults flying hot and fast, accompanied by intermittent head butting and shoving. Snotlout and Fishlegs sighed forlornly, as what had started out as an intriguing wrinkle in the Twins' lives was now back to typical sibling abuse.

"Maybe it's time to say goodbye to Last Gasp for the winter," suggested Fishlegs.

"Too bad we can't do the same to these two," replied Snotlout, shaking his head. Then a thought jumped into his head. "If we leave now, how long do you think it'll take them to figure out we're gone?"

"I don't know," said Fishlegs, "but I'm willing to find out."

The two of them moved off toward their respective dragons, the Twins so embroiled in their newest argument that escaping them was easy breezy. Ditching your friends wasn't considered a noble thing to do, especially when you were out in the frozen immensity of the Arctic Circle. But few in Berk would blame them for cutting and running. Mention the names Ruff and Tuff to any adult Viking and your response would be a story about how they started a sheep stampede or loosened the wheels on all the village wagons.

Fishlegs got to his dragon first, the Gronckle happily snoozing in her self-dug nest with her tongue lolling from her mouth. She looked so peaceful that Fishlegs felt waking her would be almost cruel. Not such a problem for Snotlout, who had strolled up to Fenrir's head and was shoving him with a boot, not harshly (it was never a good idea to shove a dragon harshly) but enough to get the dragon's attention. The Nightmare was also out like a broken lantern, snoring loudly enough to be heard over the crashing surf echoing from the other side of the hill.

Snotlout frowned at his dragon's continuing slumber. Fenrir could be a heavy sleeper, but not this heavy. "Fenrir, wake up. I want to be out of here before the Twins wise up."

Fishlegs glanced at the two-headed Zippleback, resting a little ways from Chomps. The Twins' dragon was also zonked out. Barf-Belch had a tendency to get agitated when its riders got into fights… which was constantly. The Zippleback was as peaceful as a snowcapped mountain, the twin heads entwined around each other.

Then Fishlegs noticed the fish-head pile in front of each dragon. When the Dragon Squad made their trips to Last Gasp they always brought a basket of fish for their dragons to snarf on while the teenagers hung out. The baskets were always empty by the time they were ready to go. This time out, none of the dragons had bothered to finish their meal before taking their naps.

"What gives?" complained Snotlout, rocking his dragon a little harder and getting the same result.

Fishlegs reached down and picked up his dragon's unfinished meal. He gave the fetid aroma a good whiff and noticed that something was off with the odor. The fish didn't smell rotten – Chomps wouldn't have cared if they were, considering she ate rocks on occasion. The smell resembled one of those stomach-churning aromas from the herbalist's house, where all sorts of health remedies were concocted for the ill and infirm. It reminded him of one of those draughts you drank that cured everything from bad gas to the plague, but most of the time it was just some sedative that put you to sleep for a long time.

"Snotlout, I think our fish got tainted with a drug," he said, though Snotlout didn't seem to hear him over his curses at his dragon's continued laziness. Fishlegs looked at the fish on top of the pile and realized the species wasn't local. Fishlegs's memory was good for more than just dragon factoids – he dabbled in botany and zoology as well. Most of the catch in Berk this time of year was cod. The smelly ones in the basket were trout.

Fishlegs faced Snotlout's direction and was a second away from saying that something nefarious was afoot when he realized that Snotlout was now well aware of this possibility, what with a large, dirt-smeared Viking standing over Snotlout with one beefy arm around the boy's throat and the other holding a barbed club at the ready. Snotlout's fearful eyes darted between the sneering Viking and Fishlegs, asking him for any and all immediate assistance.

Fishlegs felt a beefy arm snake under his left armpit, and in a flash a wicked-looking sword was under his chin. The face of another nasty Viking moved into view from behind him. "Don't be doing anything stupid, whelp," the face said in a deadly whisper, "or your own head will be joining the fishy ones below."

"No, I'm good," squeaked Fishlegs.

Several other Vikings soon emerged from their hiding spots, rising from the ground from which they had laid upon in eager anticipation of their upcoming ambush. They wore clothing the color of dirt and had covered their exposed skin in grime to blend in with the island's natural environment. Surprisingly sneaky for Viking warriors, but then these guys weren't your death-and-honor types. Much to Fishlegs's horror, he recognized several of the men as belonging to the Outcast Tribe, though calling them a tribe was a big stretch. They were mostly exiled Vikings from Berk and other tribes in the area, and over the last two years the Outcasts had shown up from time to time to make life difficult for the village. They had a problem with Berk in particular, especially their self-appointed leader who…

On cue, said self-appointed leader walked into view, coming in-between Snotlout and Fishlegs and giving Fishlegs his full attention. Even amongst his disheveled minions, whose appearances were vastly improved through the use of the obscuring mud they had donned for camouflage, Alvin The Treacherous outclassed them all in terms of pure physical intimidation. With dark wild hair and an equally dark and wild beard, a body frame that matched Stoick The Vast muscle for muscle, a seven-horned helmet that was rumored to be more weapon than hat, a preponderance of curved blades on his shoulder and arm guards that made patting Alvin on the back a surefire way to get impaled, and a nasty scar on his right check that seemed to get bigger over time, the only pleasant thing about the Outcast leader was that he wasn't smiling. Nothing good ever happened after Alvin began smiling.

"I think I remember you," said Alvin, his voice far too cheerful for his outward persona. "Just not sure how and why."

"You tossed me off a cliff once," answered Fishlegs meekly.

Alvin broke into a laugh, a smile now visible between his guffaws. Fishlegs's heart revved up – nothing good was about to happen.

"Sorry, boy," said Alvin, "but that doesn't exactly narrow things down for me."

Fishlegs dared a glance down the hill to where Ruff and Tuff had been arguing, hoping they were gone from the scene, which meant they were hiding or fleeing from the Outcasts. No such luck. Two more Outcasts had the Twins grabbed and restrained, dragging them up the hill to join the rest of the gang, worried expressions on their faces. They were all now officially in trouble, especially since they hadn't told anyone back home where they'd gone. What was the point in playing hooky if the adults knew where to look, after all?

"Well, lucky for you, I don't really care who you are," said Alvin. "Unlucky for you, I care about who you know, and I want to know where he went."

"Uh… who exactly?" asked Snotlout, playing dumb (not hard to do) and stuttering slightly as his nervous eyes glanced at Fenrir. The dragon snored like there was no tomorrow. No help there, either.

Alvin turned to Snotlout and gave the young Viking his best and cruelest smile. "Three guesses. I'll even help you out: Dragon Conqueror, Dragon Conqueror, and Dragon Conqueror."


	7. Where The Rot Lies

**Chapter Six: Where The Rot Lies **

Nestor realized that he had inadvertently dozed off during the flight when he felt a comfortable warmness flowing around his body, the kind you felt when it was a brisk day and you had a sunbeam available to lounge around in. The warmth made him want to sleep more – it was the realization that shot him awake. There were no sunbeams to lounge in. In fact, the weather was sending cornflake snow his way, the floating ice crystals pelting him in a painless-yet-irritating fashion as they flew on. Thanks to living in the wilds for several years with Arc, he knew about the dangers of exposure and hypothermia. Getting warm again after being too cold was a sign of your body shutting down. It was a sign that death was giving you a fire to warm your way to the afterlife.

Coming awake, he made a second realization – the warmth was everywhere. He felt cradled by it, a babe in a blanket. His hands had feeling again, and when he placed them on Proto's metal surface he felt the pleasant heat pulsing up from the magic steel. It permeated the air around him and warded off most of the chill, though the wind in his face was potent enough to penetrate the heat cocoon.

_Human Nestor awake_, piped in Proto.

"That I am," agreed Nestor. "You're warming me up, I see."

_Human Nestor's body temperature dropping below acceptable levels. Atmospheric conditions hazardous to survival. This unit increased proximity temperature to compensate. _

"Much appreciated." Nestor allowed himself another smile. Customized seating and temperature control – he may never ride another dragon ever again. Too bad he couldn't get a meal on this flight, so he opened his mouth and tried to catch as many snowflakes as possible on his tongue. Most of it stung his nose and cheeks, but he tasted a good many of them and it took the edge off his hunger. Still, his stomach's complaining was reaching epic levels. He felt ravenous enough to devour an iceberg.

Speaking of icebergs, he noticed a flotilla of them in the direction Proto was traveling. Most of them were little more than raft-sized chunks ebbing and bouncing in the tide. Landing on one of them would likely crack or capsize it and spill anyone on the surface into the freezing Arctic waters.

Arctic waters…

Nestor had been feeling a serious case of the willies for most of the flight. While ninety-nine percent of the landscape was cold ocean, the few landmarks and other notable pieces of scenery were making him feel like he was in familiar territory. The icebergs seriously contributed to the idea. They formed a semi-circle in the water, expanding outward like they had once been a part of a bigger iceberg that had cracked into dozens of smaller one. They hadn't gone far – little real current by the looks of the calm sea – but give it a year and the ice would most likely disappear entirely from this spot.

Nestor wouldn't quickly forget the day he witnessed a mechanical horror erupt from the Isle of Frost, an ancient machine designed to win a war that had already been lost twenty thousand years ago. The Isle of Frost disintegrated that day, replaced by the Monolith. The machine had pushed aside the surviving icebergs as it emerged, and Nestor couldn't help but believe that the residual pattern of the ice down below was all that was left.

But that was crazy. Surely they couldn't be back at the Isle of Frost's former location. It was a big world with lots of secret hiding spots. The Artisans wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket. They wouldn't put two super-secret projects so close together that discovering one would jeopardize the other.

Unless…

Proto veered to the right so sharply that Nestor cried out in panic, sliding down further into his seat to avoid getting thrown off. Proto didn't repeat the maneuver and easily centered itself on a new direction. With the clouds obscuring the sun, Nestor couldn't deduce the new course exactly. He guessed they were now taking a southeastern direction.

"Proto, what's happening?" he asked.

Proto's head-tentacle, which had been fixed forward during the entire flight, swiveled around to stare Nestor in the eyes. Perhaps it was trying to be a courteous speaker, or it actually was curious about Nestor right now, but Nestor really wished it would go back to watching the airspace ahead. Less creepy that way.

_429's trail leads this direction_, Proto explained. _Energy trail signals abrupt change in course, reasons unknown. _

"Why would it come out here just to change course?" reasoned Nestor.

Proto paused, then shifted its head so that it was looking behind them, at the semi-circle of ice flows on the ocean below. _Energy trail dispersion rate suggests 429 initiated search pattern activity through this region and then shifted direction after 3.334 hours. Probability high that 429 failed to find what it was searching for. _

"Hmm… If I heard you right, 429 was looking for something here and left when it couldn't find it." It almost felt like good news. "Over three hours… are we catching up?"

_429 still leads this unit, but lead distance diminished. Estimate is less than 0.23 hours lead-time._

That was something to cheer about, though Nestor could barely muster the energy to yawn right now. If 429 could be delayed a little longer, they might have a chance. It might help if they could figure out what it was after.

"Proto, if you found yourself wandering around without orders, without anyone to rely on, and you were low on power, what would you do?"

_Find an engineer_. No hesitation at all. _Engineer would supply energy, repairs, and new commands._

"So is it possible that 429 is doing the same thing?"

_Probability is likely, though 429's corrupted command structure makes this conclusion unstable. Also explains why 429 would approach this location. Archived data suggests location was Special Project Site._

That's all Nestor needed to get his epiphany properly formed. The Monolith – Special Project Site. One of the nagging questions in Nestor's inventory of unsolved mysteries was why there weren't Artisan ruins on the islands near the Isle of Frost, or why all the Shadow Halls that had information on the Monolith had been hundreds of miles away from the actual machine the Artisans had been putting together. Practically, you left your tools at the blacksmith shop where you were building your wagon, not three kingdoms away.

That is, not unless you had a means to jump hundreds of miles instantly. If you had a T-Node and a working "network," whatever that meant, you could covertly get around the world and build your secret weapons without the Ancestors figuring out what you were up to. Clever… though not enough to turn the tide of the war, as it turned out.

Proto mentioned the T-Node site being forced to close down, forcing Proto and his Guardian brother to standby for further instructions, a wait that continued in vain for eons. Nestor remembered how abruptly the ancient diary of the turtle-loving siege engineer had ended, the diary that gave him and his friends the knowledge they needed to take out the Monolith. Maybe the two were connected – the engineer getting found and snuffed out, his diary left behind in the process, which then forced the Artisans to shut everything down, Monolith and T-Node network alike, to keep the Ancestors from finding and destroying them.

But what really rattled Nestor was his virtual certainty that he was back in Hiccup's home territory. To cross all the distance and fight all those battles, only to end up going in circles. That was some crazy Fate's Luck right there. On the plus side, there was Berk, a friendly village where he might elicit assistance from Hiccup's father and friends, though he had no idea what they could do for him or how he would explain to the Chief what had happened to his son.

It really didn't change anything, though. His best chance at finding Hiccup required that he recover the T-Node from 429. That meant figuring out 429's objective. It wasn't Berk, that was for sure. They were heading the wrong direction for Berk to be 429's target.

"If 429 is looking for its masters," mused Nestor, "it's safe to say it's not going to find them. What would be its alternative?"

_If no engineer is available, 429 would then search for closest acceptable substitute._

"Closest acceptable…?" On the surface, the wording made it sound harmless, but Nestor had a feeling it was anything _but_.

_Clarifying: In instance of significant internal command disruption, Guardian units are required to reconnect with Artisan Authority to gain new commands. 429 will seek out a human organism it deems to have authority and information compatible with its command structure._

"Okay, it's looking for someone to take charge. But… its command structure is corrupt, so we don't actually know who 429 will deem 'compatible,' will we?"

_Human Nestor's analysis is correct._

Nestor leaned back into his warm spot, too wound up now to feel the tiniest bit like napping. They might have an idea about what 429 was after, but it didn't really help them much. Any way you sliced it, they still had a long chase ahead of them. It was the Arctic Circle on the edge of winter – who'd be out here for 429 to run into?

* * *

The Outcasts had a lot of rope at their disposal, and they went about using it liberally on the Dragon Squad and their dragons. By the time they were done, all three dragons had their legs, wings, and mouths bound up nice and tight. A good thing for the Outcasts, as Snotlout noticed Fenrir stirring just as the Nightmare's mouth was gagged.

Snotlout sat on the ground next to his friends with about fifty feet of rope wrapped around his arms and torso. Fishlegs had twice that amount, and at some point it occurred to the Outcasts that they were running low on rope because they decided to tie Ruffnut and Tuffnut together back to back. Snotlout wasn't sure why Alvin was bothering, as they couldn't escape without their dragons. Maybe Alvin had suffered too many defeats at the hands of Hiccup and had decided he wasn't taking chances today.

Strategy didn't come easy to Snotlout, but it did occur to him that Fenrir could burn off his bindings within seconds with one good burst of spontaneous combustion. Unfortunately, Alvin had two of his goons stationed to the left and right of the dragon's neck, where it wouldn't take them long to bring down their battleaxes at the slightest sign of fire. Snotlout had worked hard to get Fenrir not to burst into flames at the first signs of trouble, but he did have a word at his disposal that would command Fenrir to get flaming. He just needed to time it right.

Patience? Was that the idea here? Eessh. It felt too much like something Hiccup would do.

"You all comfy?" chided Alvin, standing before his men with his hands on his hips and a sneer of his lips.

"Could you tie me up to Fishlegs instead?" asked Ruffnut.

"Stop asking these guys already," said Tuffnut. "We're stuck, get over it."

"Let me explain a few things so that you four get an idea of how much work I've put into this plan of mine," said Alvin, pacing back and forth in front of the bound Vikings as he speechified, "and why I'll be deeply unhappy if I don't get what I want. For starters, Outcast Island is not a fun place to build a vacation cottage, much less live there, and I've wanted to come back home to Berk for some time. Greener pastures, revenge on Stoick and his son, my lost collection of petrified dragons eggs… all valid reasons. But I can't do this unless I train some dragons of my own, and my personal attempts to yell and threaten them into submission haven't borne fruit. But you all know this because all my plans up until now have revolved around that goal of mine. You're sick of it, I'm sick of it, and I'd gladly try something different except for the fact that somebody went and signed a peace treaty with the Gunnarr Clan that included mutual defense against… wait for it… _me and my men_."

Alvin got right up into Snotlout's face, his sour breath nearly overwhelming the lad. "Now I can't sail a longboat thirty miles from Outcast Island without getting fired on by a Gunnarr warship! This makes me cranky!" He backed off to continue his pacing, much to Snotlout's relief.

"But I have a few smuggling friends that share things with me. Like, say, that the Dragon Conqueror has left Berk and is traveling the world for some stupid reason. That means he's out and exposed. So I paid for a few mercenary spies to find a way into Berk, watch the habits of Hiccup's friends – that'd be you – and figure out a way to separate you from your village so we could have a private chat. It was nice of you to pick an island like this, by the way. This plan took a lot of gold and lot of patience – two things I don't have much of - and I want a return on my investment. So tell me where Hiccup is, and I'll let you all go back to your pathetic lives."

"We don't know where he went," said Fishlegs, "but even if we did…"

"Right, right, you wouldn't tell me." Alvin groaned at the predictable response. "I don't expect any of you to know his exact location, but you probably know his general direction. I can figure out the rest; a whelp on a black dragon tends to stand out in a crowd. People will see him and remember him. I just need a place to start."

"Personally, I'd love to give you directions," began Snotlout nervously. "I'm not exactly the best of friends with Hiccup these days. But we haven't heard from him since he left Berk, not a single letter or even a decent rumor. We're in the dark, all of us, and you can't squeeze blood from a stone."

"I tried that once," said Alvin. "The saying is true, but the stone suffered just the same… much like how you four will suffer if I don't get something useful in the next ten seconds."

Snotlout thought hard about any lie or half-truth that might sound plausible to the Outcast leader. Maybe he could say that Hiccup had gone to… uh, Denmark? Valhalla? His grandmother's house? It was times like this that Snotlout wished he'd paid attention to his dad's lessons on how to read a map instead of creating pickup lines for women… none of which actually worked.

"Go ahead and do whatever you're going to do," said Ruffnut defiantly.

"Uh…" stammered her brother. "She doesn't speak for all of us."

"He's going to do it anyway," said Ruffnut. "His name says it all."

"You must be the brightest of the bunch," said Alvin, chuckling at his own comment. "But at the same time, there are certain degrees of suffering you can avoid if you're cooperative. For example…"

Alvin went over to Chomps, the dragon's eyes half-closed with drowsiness but able to track the massive Viking as he took a battleaxe from one of the guards and balanced it in his hands. "I actually like Gronckles. They remind me of my mother – tough, ugly, and cursed with constant dragon breath. And just like my mother, I'm not afraid to cut her life short."

"No!" cried out Fishlegs. "We don't know anything!"

Alvin grinned savagely. "Not what I'm looking for."

He began to pull back the axe, Chomps eyeing Alvin with shaking fear and struggling to break free of the strong rope binding her wings. Alvin wound up for a big swing, one that would take the dragon's head clean off. Fishlegs cried out a tear-laced denial as the axe reached its zenith above Alvin's head and…

"Sir, wait!" shouted one of Alvin's goons, the surprise outburst making Alvin jerk and lower the axe before he could finish his chop. Alvin gave his subordinate an extremely dangerous glare, as if saying that _somebody_ was losing their head right now, and it might not be the dragon.

"I think one of Berk's dragons has found us," continued the goon, pointing a dirty hand to the sky. Alvin and the other Outcasts reluctantly looked to the west, where there was a spec in the distance that was growing steadily bigger, coming this way at a rapid pace.

Snotlout twisted his head to watch as the flyer gained more definition. He also assumed it was a dragon; anything flying around these parts had a good chance of being one. But there was a shiny hue to this dragon, like its skin was metallic. No dragon he knew shined like that.

"I don't think that's a dragon," squealed Fishlegs. "It looks more like a…"

"Shh!" demanded Snotlout. "Let them figure that out." Thankfully none of the Outcasts had heard Fishlegs. Whatever it was, it might be the distraction he needed to…

"AIIEEE!"

The girlish scream originated from a particularly brutish Outcast, a reaction shared by most of his comrades as the flying object picked up a sudden burst of speed and dropped from the sky. It exercised enough control at the last moment to softly land before the Vikings with the lithe grace of a snowflake, in contradiction to the misshapen, shell-like hunk of metal it resembled. More shouts erupted when it suddenly formed legs from its sides and a snake-like head from its front, its three eyes of yellow blazing like torch fires at night.

"Steel devil!" cried out a different Outcast in an equally high-pitched tone. A chorus of curses and exclamations circled the dozen or so Vikings. Predictably they raised their weapons in threatening gestures as the steel monster took to the ground and swept its glowing gaze over them.

It seemed to be ignoring Snotlout and his bound-up friends, who were all staring at the mysterious newcomer with a fair shade of terror. Snotlout was still using his heroics during the Battle of the Monolith to get on the good side of the village girls… not that he stayed on their good side for long. He knew very well what those Guardian things could do. With their dragons immobilized, they were all kinds of helpless if it decided to crush their heads for amusement. The only bright spot was it'd start with Alvin and his bunch.

Alvin kept his mouth shut and his face emotionless, either pretending to be unimpressed or actually unimpressed. He hadn't really believed the tales of steel devils attacking Berk, mostly because the tales made Stoick and Hiccup out to be big heroes once again and he couldn't stand hearing any more stories about his enemies triumphing over and over. But it was hard to deny a steel devil when it falls from the heavens and lands in front of you. Then again, weren't devils supposed to come from below?

Skeptical but not stupid, Alvin looked over at his closest subordinate and said. "Do me a solid and approach the devil."

"I'd… rather not," pleaded the subordinate, which was possibly the worst thing he could have said to Alvin as the Outcast leader saw pleas as invitations to increase the cruelty.

Alvin's cruel smile returned, and the subordinate appeared to shrink a foot in that smile's presence. "Put it this way – what's the worst that can happen with that steel devil compared to the worst thing that can happen with _me?_"

The subordinate immediately snapped to it, his steps were slow and cautious as he walked toward the metal creature. It swung its head to the Viking and watched him close in, the Viking's face twisted in fear, his warmace at the ready. The Outcasts had heard a few rumors about steel devils and what they heard had them close to soiling their underwear.

The Guardian took two steps toward the Viking, a fairly harmless act that suggested curiosity more than hostility. However, one didn't reach the infamous state of being an Outcast by being friendly or having good impulse control. The Outcast freaked and raised his warmace above his head in preparation of a good smackdown. But the actual smackdown came from the other direction.

A tentacle erupted from the Guardian's body at lightning speed, its pinchers grabbing the head of the warmace and yanking the weapon effortlessly from the Outcast. A second tentacle ensnared the cursing Viking around his waist and lifted him off his feet. The tentacle retracted, bringing the squirming, swearing Viking within inches of the tentacle head, its eyes looking the man up and down as if sizing him up for dinner. Then the metal creature tossed the Viking away like it was discarding a chicken bone, the screaming Viking skidding on top of a bank of snow until a bigger bank stopped him amidst an explosion of ice and frost.

For added effect, the Guardian proceeded to crush the warmace between its pinchers until the head snapped into four pieces and fell to the ground. It quietly went back to watching the Outcasts quiver in heightened terror.

Alvin, on the other hand, laughed as if the Guardian had just told a great joke. "Ease up, boys. I think we better skip the usual pleasantries and see what it's here for."

"What if it's here for us?" asked another goon.

"Nah," Alvin confidentially stated. "If it was, it'd be ripping our hearts out right now. I've heard of these things, these steel devils, but everything I heard says they're all gone, wiped out by our tied-up guests." Alvin sent a contemptuous look Snotlout's way. "You want to see how a real man confronts a devil without a dragon? Watch and learn."

Alvin handed off his axe and took several confident steps toward the Guardian, as if daring it to try something. Oddly enough, the Guardian didn't, and it let Alvin get right up to its yellow-eyed face unmolested. Alvin put his hands on his hips and tried out his most intimidating glare on the thing. It was hard to tell if it was impressed.

"I'm Alvin the Treacherous, leader of Outcast Island. Is there something we can do for you?"

A loud burst of discordant noise came out of nowhere, forcing Alvin and his bunch to cover their ears in defense. With their hands bound up, Snotlout and his friends had to suffer through the irritating whine until he ended several seconds later. Shaking his head in a futile effort to stop the ringing in his ears, Snotlout watched as Alvin lowered his hands from his head and stared into the Guardian's eyes as if in a trance. A weirdly pleasant trance, if the smile on his face was any indication, one that went on and on with occasional nods or shakes of the head from Alvin, the Guardian's head entirely focused on the Outcast leader.

The duration of the trance went from seconds to minutes, Alvin's men choosing to hang back, mutter and whisper without lifting a finger to help their leader. They were probably scared of what the Guardian would do if they interfered… or what their psychotic leader would do.

Snotlout exchanged quiet glances with his friends, none of them offering any hope of a good plan. It occurred to Snotlout that now might be the time to unleash Fenrir and roll the dice that they'd catch the Outcasts and the Guardian off guard. But he and his friends were quite tied up, as were Chomps and the Zippleback, and Fenrir couldn't rescue them all before the Outcasts descended on them with their axes and hammers. Plus that Guardian thing seemed more dangerous than all the Outcasts combined. If Fenrir went down, they'd all die. But if Snotlout didn't do something, they were all dead anyway.

Not for the first time, Snotlout really wished Hiccup was around to do something smart.

* * *

Even if there hadn't been geysers of sand spouting into the air to pinpoint the Wyrm's progress across the Desolation, the sizable swath of earth displaced by the creature made trailing it a breeze. Hiccup's dilemma was what to do when they caught up… which, at current speeds, was in less than thirty seconds.

The creature was making a beeline through the sands for a distant location, with no thought or concern for the dragon tailing it from the air. Hiccup had Toothless take a parallel course to the creature rather than flying over it, in case the Wyrm tried anything clever. They had come into fireball range and he could order an attack at any time. He wasn't sure how fireproof the creature was, but even if it burned like kindling on hot coals the thing was far too big to take down that way.

He needed to test out how much it didn't like fire before he could come up with a better plan.

"Let's get its attention," said Hiccup, and he told Toothless to hit it directly. Hiccup hated using dragon fire on living things unless there was no other alternative. It was safe to say there was no other alternative.

Three plasma blasts darted out of Toothless and impacted the worm's hide seconds later. A flash of blue flame and a burst of smoke later, three black scorch marks adorned the impact sights, minute wounds when compared to the overwhelming bulk of the creature. The Wyrm didn't even bother to react, keeping up its frantic pace and paying the burns no heed.

Valha had kept silent during their flight, which didn't bother Hiccup so much as made him feel that much lonelier, once again stuck in the role of the man with the plan but with no insights into the Wyrm's behavior other than it had an ego.

"Its hide is too thick," Hiccup said, declaring the obvious. He thought about targeting the beast's legs, but he doubted he could injure enough of them to do much good. Thankfully, this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with colossal threats, and what worked once might work a second time.

"Get ahead of it, bud," ordered Hiccup to Toothless. "We'll take this to the head of the problem. Maybe we can convince it that this meal isn't worth having." Toothless waggled an affirmative and narrowed his profile to gain more speed. Toothless had been exceedingly cooperative during the whole flight, even putting up with a suspicious passenger. It was actually a little weird – Hiccup couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about Toothless didn't seem right, a little nuance that felt different. But he wasn't actually worried about it, not with the Wyrm and Valha to fret over, not when Toothless was utterly on his A-game.

Hiccup watched the Wyrm's head surface and dive through the sands, like a dolphin in the ocean taking a breath before submerging. As Toothless took the lead, Hiccup saw that the creature's mouth opened as it surfaced, showing off its insanely large collection of teeth. Perhaps this was as simple as following a strategy that had worked wonders against a previous giant monster – give the thing a bad case of heartburn.

It was a narrow target though, the mouth opening for less than a second before diving into the sand. It meant two things – great timing and a head-on attack.

"I have a plan, bud. Hopefully it doesn't sound too crazy." Hiccup explained it, expecting a wary stare from his dragon buddy. He didn't get one, just another head waggle and Toothless putting on top speed. Hiccup had to put a protective hand to his eyes and duck down to reduce the quantity of stinging sand projectiles assailing him until Toothless had raced ahead of their target.

That little off-feeling again returned as Toothless gained a good mile lead and banked a one hundred and eighty degree turn, perfectly placing them in a collision course with the creature. Hiccup's heart increased its tempo, but neither Toothless nor Valha showed any signs of anxiety over the fact that they were speeding towards a one-swallow-and-you're-gone-sized worm. There was no reaction from the monster, nor did it adjust its heading – either it couldn't see them coming, or it didn't care.

"Wait for it, bud," Hiccup ordered. This was going to be tricky. The delay between his order and Toothless's reaction might trip them up, but there was no other way to send a fireball down the worm's digestive tract. Hopefully they didn't go in themselves.

The Wyrm closed in on them, the great rolling mass of flesh looming like a tidal wave of worm meat. Hiccup began counting to five in his head, knowing that reaching five meant the worm's head would be visible… he hoped.

The head emerged from the sand, climbing up to greet the incoming dragon and its riders. Its mouth parted wide and welcoming, an army of teeth poised to fatally greet Hiccup should this go wrong.

"Fire!" he yelled, right as he reached four. The next instant, a blue blaze of hot plasma flew from Toothless and crossed the distance to the Wyrm. The blast entered the mouth, frying off a pair of curved teeth before disappearing down its cavernous throat. The head submerged abruptly, as if reacting to the fiery meal by plunging into the sand once more.

Toothless veered off adeptly, missing the head by a few feet, as Hiccup watched the creature for more reactions, hoping for some sign of serious discomfort. Toothless sped away in case the Wyrm's reaction involved a lot of writhing and bucking about and sand spitting.

Indeed, there was a sign – assuming you counted the Wyrm changing course and putting on an unnatural burst of speed, its bulk causing a minor sand wave to envelop a half-dozen dunes as it turned around, its countless legs blurring together as it shifted its mass toward a new target – Toothless.

"It is following us," commented Valha.

"No, it's _gaining_ on us," replied Hiccup, flabbergasted, feeling like the world lacked a lot of sense right now. The Wyrm's legion of legs had doubled their pace in a matter of seconds, its head bobbing up and down with ferocious determination as it came after them. He knew an angry monster when he saw one, and they had just cheesed off the mother of all worms something fierce.

"Full speed, bud!" Toothless obeyed immediately, the air buffeting them as the dragon blasted over the sands and whipped up little sand clouds of his own. Hiccup glanced over his shoulder and quickly wished he hadn't, for the mighty creature was somehow keeping pace with them, a storm of sand erupting behind it as it pursued.

"At least we've distracted it," Hiccup remarked nervously. They could ascend and get safely away, provided the Wyrm didn't have any wings up its wormy sleeves, but then the creature would merely go back to its original hunt: Valha's village. For now, having it chase them was a good thing. It just wouldn't stay a good thing for very long.

In trying to think of a new tactic, Hiccup's mind went to his returning off-feeling instead. In this case, it was Toothless's precise shot into the creature's mouth. Not the fact that it had done no perceivable damage, but that Toothless's timing had been perfect, firing right as Hiccup had spoken, almost as if Toothless had known Hiccup was about to say it.

It was too perfect a shot, even for Toothless.

"We cannot stay like this forever," said Valha, whose was certainly taking all this in stride. "The Wyrm will not tire, but your dragon will."

"I'm open to suggestions."

"I fear I have none."

Hiccup groaned in irritation. "Well, we better come up with something."

"Vill zis vork?"

For a second, Hiccup thought Valha had adopted a brand-new accent. Then the shimmering image of a large dragon shape whipped over his head, flying straight at the rampaging Wyrm. The shape quickly developed color and texture, resembling a spike-clad black dragon that Hiccup was very glad to see.

The dragon came within a few feet of the Wyrm's head, skimming over it like a daredevil with a death wish. Several lances of electricity erupted off the dragon's body, the lances raking the creature's body as Lothar traveled down its length, the creature recoiling and heaving in response. Lothar completed his attack run by fading into the sand storm behind the giant worm.

Fire in the gullet might not have impressed the beast, but electricity did the trick. The Wyrm's head reared up like a bucking horse, a massive gout of sand and worm spit spewing from its mouth in a great arc, the enraged monster blindly lashing out at its attacker. The Wyrm came to a halt as it threw its head around, a cloud of sand enveloping it as it thrashed and writhed in rage over the sting it had received.

With the Wyrm stopped in its tracks, Hiccup had Toothless slow down to a relative crawl and begin circling the sand cloud where the Wyrm continued its mad thrashing. He watched for any telling signs of shimmering air and found one coming toward him, Lothar de-Shrouding and forming up on the right. Though Hiccup hadn't had much practice with reading the facial cues of a Skrill, Lothar had a disgruntled look that was hard to mistake for anything else.

"How'd you find us?" asked Hiccup, trying to sound grateful and hoping to head off any incoming scathing remarks about not sticking to the watering hole.

"Hard to miss ze sandstorm your new friend creates in its passing," replied Lothar. "Did I not tell you to sit tight, zat bad zings happen in ze Desolation? Now you have acquired a girl and a giant vorm."

"Yeah, long story."

"Explanations later. I understand zat you and ze vorm are not getting along?"

Hiccup didn't immediately answer. The way Lothar had said e_xplanations later_… Too similar to the way somebody else in Hiccup's life used that phrase…

"Dragon Rider, attention!" Lothar's harsh voice snapped Hiccup back to focus. "The vorm vill soon realize I am not in its proximity."

"Right. You ever fought something like this?"

"Vorms are not my specialty, but I'm open to new experiences."

Hiccup went back to watching the Wyrm chase phantoms in the sand cloud, his heart growing heavier as he considered his options. Even after dealing with villains like Cervantes and the Alchemist, even with his soul overflowing with grim emotions, he didn't want to outright kill the creature. Even if Valha said it was a monster at its core, a being that desired worship at the cost of the lives of the innocent, destroying the Wyrm felt too much like the kind of path a Gunnarr or an Outcast would pursue. A path that led to your heart lying crumbled in your chest, trying to slate the void in your spirit by seeking the destruction of others over and over.

But there was another want inside him, one speaking with a bigger voice. He wanted his life reset to two months ago, when all threats were gone and everything was good. He wanted the weight to go away and never return. He wanted to have his future back, his Astrid back. And if he couldn't have that, then he wanted someone, or something, to pay for it.

And the Wyrm was right there, as good a scapegoat as any.

"Can you hit it with more lightning?" asked Hiccup.

Lothar gave him a questioning look. "Yes, but to vat end?"

"Distract it, keep its head out of the sand and exposed. I'll do the rest." Sending more fire down the creature's throat was the only tactic that seemed workable. The Wyrm had pursued Toothless after one fireball appetizer, so it must not have liked it. Maybe a whole volley would do the trick, and with Lothar here to assist they just might be able to pull it off.

Lothar nodded grimly. "I vill do this. Make your shots count, Dragon Rider."

Lothar broke away and sped towards the east, preparing to attack from the opposite direction. Hiccup explained to Toothless what the plan was, and Toothless agreed without question. Pretty simple as plans go – expose the head and fire every bolt of plasma Toothless had left into its mouth. It might not kill the creature, but it might wound it enough to slow it down until Hiccup and Lothar could think of a better attack plan.

"Is this wise?" asked Valha. "This puts Lothar in harm's way."

"He's a Hyperion. He knows how to handle himself." Hiccup didn't like the tough talk coming from his mouth. Lothar might be a lightning dragon like Arc, but his electricity was limited to his skin, requiring close-range action. Lothar was endangering himself for a plan that Hiccup wasn't sure would work.

The Wyrm had finally decided that his attacker had flown the coop, moving around in a circular pattern as if trying to make up its mind on where to go next. The sand spouted less vigorously, the clouds around the creature settling as it formed a rotating circle of worm meat and legs. A strange alteration from the previously single-minded tactics of the beast.

Hiccup now felt uneasy about the plan. The Wyrm was up to something, like it was expecting another attack but didn't know where. But there was no way to warn Lothar now. The Skrill had Shrouded, his distinctive form fading into the background of the endless dunes.

Maybe he was worrying over nothing. Lothar was a Hyperion – long-lived, smarter than your average human, and endowed with all sorts of nifty powers. If the dragon smelled a trap as well, he'd call off the attack.

Off to the south, a show of electrical power lit up the air and made the sand jump and dance as Lothar's nigh-invisible form swept over the circling worm. As before, the worm's skin writhed under the lightning assault – in fact, it writhed too much.

The section of the worm under attack jerked upward at a frightening speed, catching Lothar before he could react and batting the dragon around like a club batting a rock into the air. Lothar's lightning and Shrouding quit instantly as the dragon tumbled out of control, still airborne but just so. Hiccup watched as the struggling Hyperion sought to get his wings straightened out, and it was with considerable effort that he did, arcing back into the air a heartbeat before plowing into the sands surrounding the Wyrm.

The head of the Wyrm was waiting for him, aiming its cone-shaped mouth at Lothar and unleashing a funnel of grit right at the flailing dragon. It was Lothar's turn to writhe as the sand clumped to the Skrill's wings and disoriented him. Hiccup thought he heard a forlorn cry as Lothar twisted in midair, desperately trying to fling off the sand and half-succeeding. But the dragon was so occupied with ridding his body of the intrusive grit that he failed to notice his current heading, or that the Wyrm's head had shifted to intercept him.

Valha gasped behind Hiccup as they watched Lothar half-tumble, half-glide into the monster's maw, the Hyperion barely reacting as he crossed the opening. Just like that, the dragon disappeared as if he had never existed. No death scene, no final words. The Hyperion had gone down the monster's throat as easily as a cod slipped into a Night Fury's craw.

Speechless, demoralized to the extreme, Hiccup watched the creature resume its original direction towards the horizon. Hiccup swore the Wyrm looked satisfied as its head dived back into the dunes. He didn't bother to order Toothless to pursue, though the dragon went ahead and did so anyway, maintaining the same speed and heading as the traveling worm.

"A brave dragon," said Valha mournfully. "A brave, brave dragon."

Hiccup knew now that there was nothing he could do to stop the Wyrm. Even if Toothless's full spread of fireballs could do anything other than inconvenience the creature, it wouldn't give up its desire to wreak vengeance on Valha's village. It was too big and too powerful. There were no more clever tricks he had at his disposal, no more allies to act as distractions. The best-case scenario was that it could be delayed for a time, but such efforts would lead to their deaths eventually.

Without Lothar to lead them out of the Desolation, they would all die in the wastes anyway.

Back to the miserable state he was in before Lothar arrived, Hiccup let Toothless do the flying while he sat back quietly, ignoring Valha's occasional questions about what they were doing next, ignoring the blistering heat that slowly baked him, ignoring the repeating faces of the dunes below him or the slapping sand that nipped him from time to time. It was too much for him. This enemy was too much for him, like the Alchemist had been too much. _Everything_ was too much for him…

The barrier field.

It came to him as suddenly as one of his typical bouts of inspiration, but it wasn't inspiration. It was more or less deduction, the culminations of several subtle clues that had pestered him all morning. This one clue, this important one, succeeded in cutting though his despair better than any clichéd advice or false hope.

Lothar's barrier field… or more accurately, the _lack _of one.

Even in abject misery, Hiccup's mind still held that one enduring trait that defined him – his desire to tinker, to discern past mistakes and get around them, to find a solution to an insurmountable problem. If you couldn't lift an axe, build a machine to lift one for you. If your dragon can't fly without a rudder, build him a replacement. If the rulebook says you can't win a battle, rewrite the rulebook.

And when something doesn't smell right, that usually meant it's rotten. The question was, where did the rot lie?


	8. The Outcast And The Outlander

**Chapter Seven: The Outcast And The Outlander **

Nestor attempted to ignore the blasts of sea spray pelting his face at random intervals, but it was hard to not shiver when ice water was freezing your face off. Proto skimmed the ocean at such a low altitude that he contacted the crest of every other wave, washing down Proto and wetting Nestor in the process. The light snow had tapered off for now, but the snowflakes were preferable to the liquid ice treatment. At least Proto's heated body took the edge off the cold.

"The Fates are messing with me, I just know it."

Nestor's observation went right past Proto without the Guardian making a literal comment. Proto was focused on Nestor's current order – approach the tiny island as covertly as possible, and Proto was doing so. This involved dropping to sea level and shifting direction so that the island's meager hill blocked their approach from the sight of the Vikings currently occupied with 429. Nestor had hoped that Proto had some kind of Shrouding ability, but that wasn't one of his talents.

429 had found humans – dragon-flying humans, if the three dragons Proto reported "sensing" were the Viking-on-board types. Seventeen humans, three dragons – an odd combination, especially on an extremely uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere. Berk was in the wrong direction, so none of this made much sense at the moment. Proto had the ability to sense and classify human-sized organisms (or larger) at half-a-mile away, allowing him to pick up on the weird party going on ahead of them, but that was all he knew about what was transpiring. He had to assume 429 was there to find out if any of the humans had that certain special something it wanted.

As they closed in, Nestor spotted a Viking longboat moored on a beach behind the hill. No one appeared to be occupying it. The longboat's decorative hull didn't match that of the ships the Berkians used. A rival clan, perhaps? It wasn't a Gunnarr ship, which was probably a good thing.

"Can 429 sense you?" he asked. The thought made him nervous. They now had the opportunity to catch up to 429 and he didn't want it spoiled by the faulty Guardian getting spooked and taking off.

_Negative, _stated Proto. _This unit tracks 429 by the T-Node's energy trail. This unit and 429 designed to avoid detection by power-seeking magic and technology._

"What about me?"

There was a pause as Proto shifted course, aiming at a group of nearby breakers in the water that offered some cover to their approach. _429 already aware of your presence. Effect on 429's behavior unknown._

"If it's not taking off yet, it must not be concerned. That might give me the opening I need. The two of us can go in and surprise it. And if those Vikings complain, we'll just…"

_Human Nestor, this unit cannot attack human organisms if they are hostile._

The declaration caught Nestor by surprise, mostly because he realized he'd forgotten that important fact. "At all? Even if they're attacking, well, me?"

_Against command structure._

"Right, the all-important command structure. Well, I can handle a few unruly Vikings. Still, I'm pretty sure 429 doesn't feel the same way."

_This unit can engage hostilities with 429 if required._

"That's something, at least." Nestor thought the contradictions in Proto's reasoning perplexing. Attack a human, even a hostile one? No way. Attack a fellow Guardian? That was just ducky. Yet it made sense the more he thought about it. If you designed a Guardian as a helper and a defender against an inhuman threat (in this case, the Ancestors), you might as well make it difficult for it to turn on the humans it was supposed to assist. Though in the case of 429, difficult didn't mean impossible.

They landed amidst the surf break next to the tiny island. Proto extended its legs and walked the two of them out of the surf and onto the pebbled beach, keeping its torso low to the ground. Nestor jumped off once they hit dry land and Shrouded as his feet touched the earth. He was prepared to lead the way up the hill towards the camped Vikings when he noticed how prominently Proto's shining body glimmered in the defused sunlight. He quickly surmised that he'd only sneak up on the gathered Vikings successfully if he investigated by himself.

"Proto, you need to wait here and hide yourself," he said. "Try near those rocks over there." Nestor gestured to a group of half-submerged rocks out in the water. "I'll call for you if I need you."

Proto focused its tentacle head on Nestor in a gesture that almost made it seem like it was concerned by his decision. _Human Nestor, 429 is unpredictable. Hostility is probable._

"I know, Proto," he reassured, even if he was wasting his breath trying to reassure a machine. "Assuming I get the opportunity to close in on 429, where would 429 keep the T-Node on its body?'

_Probable location is within central torso, near underside. T-Node detectable by energy lattice feeding from T-Node to 429's exoskeleton. _Nestor wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but he figured "aim for the glowing spot" was the gist of it.

Like the compliant Guardian it was, Proto moved out toward the breakers while Nestor climbed the hill in Shroud form. Nestor wasn't sure if he'd made the right call in hiding Proto, as the presence of another Guardian might intimidate the Vikings into playing nice. But in Nestor's experience, a Viking was more likely to respond to intimidation with increased hostility than he was to back down. Not to mention that Proto would probably be useless in a fight against the Vikings, what with its pacifistic command structure. He was better off handling this alone.

It was an easy climb and there were no sentries on the lookout, allowing him to nimbly maneuver behind a smattering of rocks near the crest before any of the mean-looking Norsemen could detect him. Keeping his Shroud on while sticking his neck out for a look-see, he picked out roughly ten grime-covered Vikings on the other side of the hill, gathered near 429. One of them was standing right next to the rogue Guardian, apparently doing absolutely nothing but having a staring contest while his pals watched in silence.

Not far from them were the three dragons Proto had detected. Much to Nestor's confusion, all three dragons were bound up like hogs waiting for a slaughter. To increase his confusion more, he swore he recognized the dragons as belonging to Hiccup's Dragon Squad friends. At the very least they seemed like Berkian dragons, with their tamer dispositions and forlorn glances down the hill towards a second group of Vikings.

He then surveyed the second group and saw enough to end his confusion and replace it with full-scale alarm.

He never really got a chance to know Hiccup's friends from Berk outside of Astrid, as he had kept out of Berk for most of his stay on the island and his brief attempt to enjoy the comforts of the village were cut short by Saga's proclamation of a dire future. He never got to know Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut except in passing. Based on what he knew of them, he preferred it that way. Hiccup had to be a saint to put up with that bunch for as long as he has. Opinions aside, they were obviously in trouble, the bounty of rope around their bodies and the steely-looking Viking guard watching them make that painfully clear.

The Fates were definitely messing with him. The odds of him showing up at this little gathering after being transported hundreds of miles into an ancient cavern? Pretty small.

Saga, the real Saga and not the one that came to him during near-death experiences, had once told him that there was no such thing as destiny, only possibilities, and those possibilities were based on the paths you took in life. Some paths made use of your personality and skills more than others, some paths brought success while others brought ruin, but in the end you always had the choice to accept or decline a path. There were always multiple paths in life, and multiple consequences.

Yet Nestor still believed there were other forces at work, attempting to create a desired outcome while shoving poor mortals onto this path or that path. Case in point: Hiccup and Nestor kept running into each other despite Nestor's efforts to keep Hiccup out of his life. Indeed, the two of them had needed to work together in order to save the day, first against Cervantes and later the Alchemist. It was why he feared for Hiccup, but didn't despair too deeply at his friend's disappearance. Deep in his heart, he held a childish faith that they would reunite again because the Fates wanted it that way. The Fates apparently wanted him to save the day here as well, though they could've just asked politely and not plop him in an ancient cavern so he could nearly die of asphyxiation.

Of course, it could also be argued that he'd followed the trail of a malfunctioning war machine and that Hiccup's friends had a habit of getting into trouble and that, today of all days, the two factors had overlapped. There weren't any other forces in motion other than pure luck.

Nah. The Fates were most definitely messing with him.

* * *

Alvin didn't know the word _hypnosis_ and it stood to reason that he likely would never learn such a scholarly word. Not many scholars came to Outcast Island unless they were hostages for ransoming. But had he known the word, and had he been able to communicate with his goon squad behind him, he would have argued that the steel devil hadn't hypnotized or glamoured him at all despite his trance-like behavior. He was having a polite conversation, albeit a weird one.

The steel devil didn't talk to him with words and a voice, but sent images into Alvin's head that played out like warrior poetry put to life. Most of them were of people and places he'd never seen or heard of, a great land where the buildings climbed toward the sky and strange boats floated in the air. Then it would shift to a scene of a tense battle where the floating wagons or boats exchanging projectiles with other floating boats, then to a dying forest where every tree was afflicted with a great wasting disease, then to a guy with a thick beard talking to what looked like a pet turtle. What kind of man talked to a turtle?

It was insanity, yet Alvin found it so alluring that he greeted the images happily, even if most of it made no sense. Because while there appeared no rhyme or reason to the sequence of pictures entering his mind, they all had one running theme in common – power.

All these strange humans, all these machines and floating boats and amazing displays of violence, all of them wetted Alvin's lust for power. There were weapons out there that could reduce villages like Berk into kindling in seconds. They existed once – they may exist still. What a force he would be if he could get his hands on such devices. And the best part was that this steel devil had such knowledge at its disposal. If he could just learn a few of its secrets…

Then images of the bearded turtle-lover came into focus, the man standing in a torch-lit cave somewhere, except the torches resembled rocks that shined from the inside. The steel devil stood before the man, listening as the turtle-lover squawked to it in an incomprehensible language that sounded like a dog whining and clicking his tongue at the same time. The steel devil then proceeded to clear debris from the cave, piling it up in a metal wagon nearby.

Several more images of a similar nature played out, one right after the other. Turtle-lover said something to the steel devil; steel devil went and performed a menial task in the cave. No one had ever accused Alvin of having an excess of gray matter, but even he managed to pick up on the common thread laced in the visions. The steel devil was being ordered around. It seemed to want this.

_Does it want me to give it orders? _Alvin mused. It made no sense. Why would it seek out a known scofflaw if it were only looking to do janitorial duties?

Then it occurred to him that this thing had a variety of talents. It flattened what's-his-name in no time. Perhaps he just needed to get imaginative.

The steel devil's attention was diverted about the time a newcomer had entered the fray, one the Guardian had encountered before and who constituted a significant danger. Before it broke off contact, he fed Alvin one final image. Alvin hadn't yet decided how to make this intriguing steel devil work for him, but the steel devil already had an idea on what he could do with his new metal friend, going as far as to tell him the special phrase he needed to get the unnatural thing to spring into action.

The horrible smile on his face suggested the idea was a real winner.

* * *

Unlike the rest of his friends and his sister, Tuffnut had his back to the whole Alvin-and-the-steel-devil drama and it took too much effort to swing his head around to watch. Despite the serious likelihood that there weren't going to live out the day, Tuffnut found himself getting bored from all the waiting for someone to die.

"Ruff, did you really mean what you said?" asked Tuffnut.

Ruffnut, focused on the Guardian up the hill and doing her best to hide her fear of the thing, still managed to rustle up some irritation. "Seriously, you're going to continue this discussion _now?"_

"When else are we going to do it?"

"How about when we're not tied up and surrounded by Outcasts?"

"I want to know, Ruff. I want to know why you've been acting weird."

"How am I acting all that weird? A lot of other people like pottery and books, you know."

"Yeah, but we're not other people. We're Ruff and Tuff. We raise hell and make people angry every second of the day. We've been doing it all our lives."

"And don't you think it's time for a change?"

Ruffnut hesitated, unsure if he heard that right. "Is this a trick question?"

"No." Tuffnut attempted to adopt a less-angry tone of voice and somewhat succeeded. She had prepared a speech for the day when her brother successfully wised up to her new habits, and while the situation didn't look promising in the slightest, now was as good a time as any to spill her guts while she still had guts to spill.

"Tuff, you're my brother and you'll always be my brother until the moment I die… which may not be all that long from now. The Gods know there's not a day I haven't wanted to give you a black eye, but I can't say I haven't had fun giving them to you. Still, I think our routine has gotten… old."

"Old?" Tuffnut couldn't believe _his_ sister was capable of saying these words. "We were just getting warmed up. Remember that shenanigan list we made? We're only halfway through it. We were about to try filling the village well with sour yak milk."

"Missing the point, Tuff. _I'm_ tired of it. I'm not a kid anymore. Sheep stampedes aren't as fun as they used to be, and it turns out that pottery isn't as dull as I thought it was. Plus I get to take all the discards and use them for target practice with Barf-Belch."

"Wait, is this about Astrid leaving?" said Tuffnut, as if he hadn't heard anything she'd just said. "Because I'm pretty sure you got weird right about the time she took off with Hiccup."

Ruff was shocked into silence briefly. Her brother was actually capable of experiencing insight. "That's part of it. I mean, she's off on a grand adventure and I'm stuck here with you guys all the time. I've been asking myself why I can't do what Astrid's been doing – fighting monsters, seeing the world, spending time with a guy who _isn't_ her brother…"

"Wait a second." Perhaps it was the fear of immanent death at the hands of Alvin that was sharpening his mind, but Ruff suddenly had another moment of insight, making it a grand total of two insights in as many years. "Is this about Astrid leaving… or that Outlander guy?"

Ruff had another bout of brother-induced shock, and she quieted and looked out at the wide-open sea rather than answer. In terms of interesting things to look at, she was looking the wrong way.

The one nearby Outcast guard was an especially impatient Viking, an unhappy brute who got distracted merely walking to the outhouse in the mornings. He had taken to fiddling with his wooden club while glancing longingly at his pals up the hill or glancing menacingly at the four hostages. Then the Twins began their insipid discussion and he began to debate whether it'd be worth it to brain the two blabbermouths and risk Alvin's wrath to get out of guard duty. As harsh as Alvin's punishments were, at least they were always exciting.

As Ruffnut's silence continued and her brother wondered if she had even heard his last question, the guard suddenly had plenty of excitement when something grabbed him from behind, unseen hands gripped around his neck and mouth, inhibiting his ability to call out as well as breathe. He reacted by swinging his club and braining himself with it, making his attacker's job much easier.

"Ruff, did you fall asleep on me again?" asked Tuff.

"No… it was just that… well…"

"It _is_ about that guy. That's why you're reading a stupid romance epic." Tuffnut groaned irately. "I knew that guy was trouble the moment he saved you from falling to your death."

"Oh, I'm sorry you don't approve of that kind of thing," shot back Ruffnut.

"You know what I mean. You do realize he's not even a Viking, and definitely not normal, and you can stop pulling against me because we're not getting loose that way."

"Idiot, I'm not pulling against _you._ You're doing it to me." She sounded too irritated to be lying.

"I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was trying to escape, Ruff," replied Tuff.

"_Salo krebit, will you two shut up!"_ whispered a third insistent voice.

The Twins did shut up, if only out of sheer shock over the disembodied voice that was pulling at their ropes. It was Ruffnut who looked the right direction first and saw the blurred human figure kneeling down next to them and yanking at the knots securing their bindings. Her shock didn't lesson, but she now wore a little smile.

On the other hand, her brother didn't have the angle to see the phantom figure. "Uh, Ruff, was that you just now?" he asked.

"Ah, yeah, she's been working on her impersonations," Nestor replied flippantly. "Now quiet down before you draw attention."

"What are you two doing?" Snotlout had twisted his head around after hearing a voice that didn't match either twin. His eyes widened when he saw the distorted form wrestling with the Twins' bonds. "Whoa, seriously, what's going on?"

Nestor sighed and dropped his Shroud, giving Snotlout a dirty look that suggested he was unimpressed with the young Viking's subterfuge skills. Snotlout got the point, nodded, and quieted immediately.

Fishlegs wore a gleeful, hopeful expression at the unexpected rescue. "Yay, the Outlander," whispered Fishlegs, well aware that less noise was a good idea. "That means Green Lightning is around here somewhere. I never got to measure his wingspan for the Dragon Manual."

"What about Hiccup, Astrid, and Toothless?" Snotlout whispered back. "Why's the Outlander the only one showing up to this party?"

Deciding that speed was more important than subtlety, what with Hiccup's Dragon Squad all but announcing his presence, Nestor put a little more power into his grip and ripped the securing knot clean off. The ropes fell free and the Twins rose to their feet while Nestor went to Fishlegs, keeping an eye on the uglier Vikings up the hill to see if they'd noticed him. So far, they were too caught up in whatever was happening between their leader and 429 to look his way.

"What are you doing here?" asked Snotlout, a little put out that Nestor was saving him for last.

"Very long story," said Nestor, ripping off Fishlegs's bonds in one strong yank.

"Where's Hiccup and Astrid?" asked Fishlegs.

"Very long story." His stern face slipped slightly at the mention of Astrid, but only for a moment.

"Are you here all by yourself?" asked Ruffnut, the Twins standing by Snotlout and making themselves useful by getting him free. Ruffnut sounded oddly cheerful, which increased the depth of her brother's frown while he stared unhappily at Nestor.

"Very long story," repeated Nestor. "That's three, my turn." Nestor gestured at the Vikings up the hill. "Not friends of yours, I take it."

"That's Alvin the Treacherous, and his Outcasts," explained Fishlegs. "They're not nice, even by Viking standards."

"Ah, yeah, the name's a bit of a giveaway." Nestor then gestured at the bound-up dragons, who had been left largely unguarded. There were still three Outcasts meandering near the Nightmare, though their attention was drawn to the Guardian more than the dragons. "You four count to thirty, get to your dragons and get clear of here. Get back to Berk and stay there. I'll meet you after I get what I came for, then I'll tell you the very long story."

"Thirty? Who can count to thirty?" said Snotlout. His ropes were off and he stood with the Twins, all of them looking skeptical about this plan.

"I'll do the counting," offered Fishlegs.

"And the guards?" asked Tuffnut.

"By the time Fishlegs gets to thirty, they'll be very busy," explained Nestor.

"What about you?" asked Ruffnut, easily noticing the lack of any ships or untied dragons in the area. "How are you getting off the island?"

"Same way I got on. Now, if you'll pardon me, I have a date with a Guardian. Again, very long story."

Nestor headed up the hill without his Shroud, obviously prepared to be conspicuous. The young Vikings watched him go while Fishlegs quietly counted to thirty, the others mostly choosing to keep silent and not spoil the confusing-yet-fortuitous turn of events; all except Tuffnut.

"At least he's not dating _you_," he commented in Ruffnut's ear, earning him an elbow to the stomach.

* * *

The first indication the Outcasts had that they had another newcomer to their hostage party was when one of them unwilling came off his feet and flew into another burly Outcast, the two men cursing as they went down in a heap. Their collective attention shifted to the skinny man defiantly walking past the first of their group, bafflement running rampant.

This being the Outcasts, who preferred to greet guests to their parties with the sharp end of their axes, confusion soon changed to disdain and hostility. They regarded Nestor and his confident posture with searing animosity; their cold, angry eyes suggesting a horde of cruelties were about to beset him. Unlike the Dragon Conqueror's comrades, this one had no value. This one could be hurt with impunity. Such were the hearts of the Outcasts that they didn't even consider how a twerpy character like Nestor could have flattened two Vikings until another mook charged in with his sword and was met with Nestor's arms. A shiny energy field shattered the sword upon impact, steel shards raining down at Nestor's feet, and the same field batted down the surprised Outcast as Nestor's fist greeted his face.

After that, the Outcasts adopted the same looks they had reserved for the steel devil, and they gave Nestor the space required to approach Alvin unmolested. Let their not-exactly-beloved leader deal with the unnatural man – worst case, they could always get someone else to lead the Outcasts.

Alvin and 429 had concluded their "conversation," giving Nestor their full attention as he strode up to the blade-covered Outcast. Alvin had an intrigued air to him as he attempted to discern who this interloper was, and then laughing heartily when he clearly thought he had it figured out. 429's tentacle-head stared right at Nestor, its unreadable eyes hiding its intentions. Nestor hid his own intentions behind a mask of stern confidence, one Arc had told him to use when dealing with threats. It would've been easier to maintain if he only had the odiferous Alvin to deal with, but he didn't know how 429 was going to react, and the Guardian was plenty of a threat.

Alvin finished his laughing fit and said, "Ah, I get it. Outlander, right? I heard about you in the same tales that feature these steel devils." He jabbed a thumb in 429's direction, then waved at Nestor, unimpressed by the size difference between them. You could've fit two, maybe three Nestors within Alvin's bulk. "I should've assumed you wouldn't live up to the legend."

Nestor shrugged, not at all fazed by the Outcast's veiled insult. "At least you've heard of me. Can't say the same for you."

It wasn't much of a comeback, not by Nestor's standards, but the ego-driven Outcast took it much worse than expected, dropping his dismissive smile. "What was that?"

"Never heard of you."

"Never heard of me?" Alvin huffed and pounded his chain mail. "I'm the scourge of Berk! I've fought the blasted Dragon Conqueror over…" He stopped to count on his fingers and somehow lost track getting that far. "We've fought over and over. I am the Great Nemesis of the Dragon Conqueror… and you don't _know_ of me?"

"Assuming that you're referring to Hiccup, I'm sorry to tell you that your name has never come up once." Nestor smiled, relishing watching Alvin's pride deflate before him. "He must not see you as nemesis material. To be fair, though, we've had a lot bigger threats to deal with than…"

"Bigger threats? THERE ARE NO BIGGER THREATS THAN ME!" roared Alvin.

"I'll take your word for it."

An enraged dragon roar from down the hill ended the discussion and switched matters to the captive dragons, or more accurately the previously captive dragons. The men Alvin had stationed to guard the beasts were now running for their lives toward the sea, their fannies smoking or outright on fire from close proximity to the Nightmare's self-combustion talent. The dragon cried out in bloodlust and anger as his bonds snapped and burned, his wings spreading out and his head whirling around to send another blast of red hot death at the fleeing Outcasts. The trained dragon didn't go for the kill shot and merely toasted their boots as they ran on.

Snotlout ran up to his loyal mount, patted him reassuringly on the snout and then boarded him, all the while wincing from the heat of his dragon's residual burning. Fenrir moved to the Gronckle and the Zippleback and snapped at the ropes, ripping them apart with his razor-sharp teeth. Fishlegs and the Twins quickly ran to their dragons and helped pull the bindings off their reptilian companions, the dragons greeting them happily as their riders mounted them. With nary a moment of hesitation, the Dragon Squad took off and headed out to sea, presumably toward Berk.

The whole time this was going on, Alvin and his men stood and watched like spectators at a pit fight, Alvin frowning and his men close to panic. They had awaited the word to attack, and they never got it. That made them even more panicky as Alvin's predictable inclination towards any problem was to kill it. Their whole plan had just flown out to sea, and yet their leader didn't seem all that disturbed by it.

Nestor watched them go with palpable relief. They were free and out of harm's way. Hiccup would be happy knowing that his friends were going to make it out of this mess.

Hoping that Alvin would be more cooperative with his leverage gone, Nestor turned back to him and said, "Now, I need to deal with the 'steel devil' behind you. Stand aside and you and your men can leave."

Alvin's frown lingered for a second, then reversed itself into an evil smile. "I don't think so."

"Chief, we just lost the dragons," pointed out a goon. The murmuring that followed suggested Alvin's men were at a loss as to why this pleased Alvin so.

"We no longer need them, boys," said Alvin, adding a chuckle.

The statement confused his men, but it alarmed Nestor. He saw 429 creep closer to Alvin, as if anticipating that Alvin needed him. Nestor had suspected 429 was here to find a human compatible with its warped sense of command structure. By the Fates, please let that not be Alvin.

"Boys, I've had a nice chat with the steel devil," said Alvin. "Can't say I understand everything it was telling me, but it made one thing clear – I help it, it helps me. And the first thing it's going to help me with is to teach this mongrel deviltry-wielder here not to get all up in my business."

"I don't know what you think is going to happen here (WHAM!)…"

Nestor barely saw the tentacle that smashed him in the chest. It came out of 429, whirled around Alvin like an agile snake, and struck him hard, Nestor's field flaring as he flew backward down the hill, scouring the hard snow with his body. His arms reflectively dropped and dragged on the ground, halting his momentum so that he didn't go sliding all the way down into the freezing waters.

Feeling like he'd just been felled by a rockslide, Nestor struggled to his feet and nonchalantly brushed the snow off his clothing, hoping he didn't look as uneasy as he felt. No harm from the hit, as usual, but the speed at which 429 had attacked had been incredible. It hadn't been that fast in the cavern. Perhaps it had been in a weakened state from a lack of mystical energy, and now it had the T-Node's energy to feed it.

Alvin's men looked on in alarm and amazement as Alvin put out a big ol' belly laugh and took two steps backward, so that he was practically touching 429's misshapen torso. "I could let the devil do the deed for me, Outlander. But really, where's the fun in that?"

The next thing that came out of Alvin's mouth sounded a lot like a wolf baying at the moon in-between three clicks of the tongue. His men, already debating amongst themselves who got Alvin's collection of petrified dragon eggs since it was increasingly clear that Alvin had gone mad, heard the sounds as insanity-fueled gibberish. Nestor heard the sounds and found an unsettling meaning behind them. He doubted Alvin had a working knowledge of Ancient Artisanae – he must have come from 429 – but he said the three-word phrase pretty well for an illiterate muscle-head.

_Give me protection._

The air seemed to hush in expectation as 429 moved forward, its body separating and spreading out like dough on a kitchen counter. The metal became fluid, liquidly in nature, and it flowed around Alvin's body, coating his chest, thighs, and legs as if intending to absorb him into its mass. Alvin laughed and spread out his arms, utterly thrilled at the notion of being enveloped by the steel devil as it lifted him off his boots and into its embrace. In mere seconds he was merged into 429's torso like a malformed snowman, with only his head above the fluid metal.

Nestor thought he'd seen it all, yet every other day something occurred to prove him wrong. As distracting as the sight of watching a man merging with a Guardian was, he had the wherewithal to spot a pyramid-like object sticking out of 429 for a brief second, dislodged by its owner's transformation. But it was swallowed up again before Nestor could get a firm fix on its location inside the Guardian.

The transformation continued as 429's torso lengthened and thinned, forming stork-like legs with gripper feet that punched through the crusted snow and gripped the rock layer below it. Silver metal flowed down Alvin's arms, enveloped them, morphing to resemble grossly distorted metal copies that were more tentacle than human and three to four times as long, complete with flexible joints and moving fingers. His new legs elongated until his uncovered head now towered ten feet tall. Most of Alvin's torso remained encased in myssteel, his one vulnerable spot being his scarred, yet perfectly happy, face.

Nestor thought of a puppet made of crude steel, built with a head three sizes too small and no love of artistry, and figured it couldn't look any worse than how Alvin looked now. This was 429's idea of protection, designed less for looks than for combat effectiveness.

Alvin stopped his laughing and swiveled his head to inspect his metal body, seemingly impressed. His right arm moved and flexed like a real human arm, albeit far longer and thicker proportionally. He brought a metal hand to his face and wiggled the fingers before him. It struck him funny once more and he clapped his metal hands together, the loud bang of metal on metal echoing across the island.

"This is _better_ than dragons, boys," declared Alvin, his men more impressed now that the horrific transformation had ceased. He looked at Nestor, lifting a metal limb and pointing it his way. "It's a shame Hiccup's friends all deserted you, Outlander. I wanted to try this out on a dragon, so that I'll know what to expect when I pay a visit to Berk. But all I have is you – that'll have to do."

* * *

Nestor didn't begrudge Hiccup's friends for leaving. He'd told them to do so. They didn't have the experience fighting Guardians he had, and in all honesty they didn't strike him as the most disciplined of warriors to begin with. But he did feel a measure of regret in sending them away as promptly as he had, because he could've used assistance right about now.

It'd been a long time since he'd gone into combat without someone at his back or his side. Arc had been there for him ever since the fateful day the Hyperion gave up his precious barrier field. Hiccup had become a trustworthy friend, always providing air support where needed. Saga was a fellow warrior, rushing into the fray right alongside her friend Astrid. Even Qiao and Linebreaker, two people he barely knew and whom he had reason to remain curious about, had proven themselves trustworthy in battle. He'd gladly have any of them at his side right now.

Arc had once told him that the only kind of heroes that fought alone were the dead ones, and Nestor believed him wholeheartedly. So what did you do when you _had_ to fight alone?

He resisted glancing at the beach where he left Proto. The Guardian might be incredibly useful in a fight, or it might be a humongous liability, and either way he wanted to save Proto as a last resort if the battle went against him.

The long, steel legs of the Alvin-429 combo strode toward him with not a single wobble in his gait. Nestor shunted power to his limbs and watched Alvin approach, looking for a hitch in his stride or other signs of vulnerability. No obvious signs presented themselves.

With a hideous laugh, Alvin lashed out with his right arm, the limb lengthening in transit so that it was more metal whip than arm. Nestor dashed backward to avoid it, but at the last second the tentacle lengthened a foot further and found Nestor's undefended side. The blow knocked Nestor off-kilter, almost sending him sprawling down the hill again before he regained his balance. Anticipating a follow-up attack, Nestor used the residual impact to speed up his next dodge as Alvin's left appendage swung around, denting the snow where Nestor used to be.

Alvin pressed his advantage and swung his new myssteel limbs around with wild abandon. Nestor darted between them, feeling the rush of wind from each near-miss grow stronger with each attempt. Any normal man would have been slaughtered by now, and while Nestor was slowly getting the feel of Alvin's style of fighting, he had a feeling Alvin, or perhaps 429, was doing the same. The Guardian had tremendous strength, as most Guardians did, and the island began looking more and more cratered and pocketed as Alvin continued his assault.

Nestor needed to get in close and finish this quickly, or else his field, still not fully recharged from his battle with the world's worst cave-in, would diminish too much and Alvin would then turn him into pulp. Good thing Alvin fought with little more than a bruiser's mentality – overpower, then kick your opponent in the ribs for good measure. The trick was not to get to the rib-kicking stage, which was easier said than done. 429 gave Alvin the advantage of range with his extended appendages and Nestor couldn't even get within fifteen feet of the Alvin-429 combination with Alvin's tireless attacks blocking the way.

Another baker's dozen of rapid swings went by, keeping Nestor on the defensive, but he did notice two things about the Alvin-429 monstrosity. Chiefly, Alvin didn't move as fast as 429 could, possibly because 429 might damage Alvin doing so. Alvin was flesh and blood, stuck with the burly body the Fates gave him. That meant 429 was limited to some degree while he was protecting the murderous Outcast.

Second, the all-important glowing spot had presented itself, situated near Alvin's right shoulder and encased in a thick section of metal that looked more tumorous than shoulder-like, veins of white energy standing in contrast to the silver surface. That had to be the T-Node.

"C'mon, Outlander, show me your moves," chided Alvin, launching a right-left combo that Nestor danced away from… just barely. "Aren't you the guy that took on a hundred Gunnarr? The guy that helped the Dragon Conqueror destroy the Mono-thingy, or whatever it was called?"

"I sure am," retorted Nestor. Alvin was proving too predictable in his swings, and Nestor now had a pattern to anticipate. He let Alvin's next two attacks go by, taking a glancing hit from Alvin's left arm that made his whole body shudder, then funneled power to his legs and charged straight at Alvin while his arms were still retracting. It was going to be close, the snow flying as his feet propelled him up the hill and into the air, his timing right on the coin as he sailed toward the glowing spot…

… And then he was flying again, but in a direction not of his choosing, as two new tentacles erupted out of the Guardian's chest region, slapping him away like a flyswatter taking out a gnat.

Nestor hit the snow and sent a blizzard of ice into the air, sliding down the hill until he found a flat region right before the pebbled beach. Unlike the snow, the pebbles succeeded in arresting his slide, but they did little for the pain or the daze-creating spinning in his head. It took several painful seconds for Nestor to rise as far as his knees, trying to will the mad spinning to stop while keeping a dizzy eye on the laughing metal monster known as Alvin. A chorus of other laughs followed Alvin as he strode down the hill, taking his sweet time as if he had plenty of it.

Problem was, he did.

"Lots of tricks to this steel devil," boasted Alvin. "Don't worry, Outlander. This isn't going to end too soon. I want to try them all out on you before I leave."

Alvin's right hand reached down into a snowbank and came out with a large snow-encrusted rock the size of a large wagon wheel. Gripping it like a snowball, he threw back his hand and tossed it with startling accuracy right at Nestor, who had just gotten over his last bout of head-spinning only to be struck with a new case. His field flared violently as the rock bounced off Nestor's chest, sending him skidding across the pebbles and into the water.

Frigid waves lapped at his body, the cold simultaneously waking him up with its icy needles and numbing him where it touched. Nestor forced himself out of the surf and back to the beach, grimly aware that his field had no effect on cold.

"Ha, bet that's brisk!" Alvin cackled, his men joining in. Nestor's blood was running too hot for the combination of damp clothes and frigid air to slow him down, but he knew it would take its toll soon enough. Not to mention that his field strength was down to less than a quarter already, Alvin's punishing attacks wearing him down fast.

One plus in Nestor's favor was that Alvin was proving to be one of those braggart-class villains who couldn't help but have a good laugh when he thought he had the upper hand. He wasn't efficient, not bothering to do the smart move and finish off Nestor. Alvin could stand back and rain down boulders on his head, but Nestor wagered that wasn't Alvin's style. Guys like Alvin liked to stand over their victim's still-living body and gloat.

"I haven't had this much fun in _years_," yelled down Alvin, continuing down the hill but at a slower pace so that he could savor the experience. "In fact, I'll give you a minute to catch your breath before I come down there. Don't want to ruin the fun too quickly."

Nestor looked around the island for options. As he'd already found out, the water was freezing; swimming would be a death sentence. There were no caves and no brush and he doubted building a snow fort would do him any good. He was definitely at last resort time, but a quick glance around the beach revealed no sign of Proto. It was possible the Guardian had decided to hide underwater, since it didn't need to breathe…

That's when Nestor spotted a large pile of rocks and pebbles down the beach that was strangely out of place, a collection of random bits of stone that surely couldn't have been formed by the tides. It looked like a young child's sand sculpture if you replaced the sand with hard rock. In fact, it had the same artistic style as the rock tumors from Proto's cave.

And, Nestor suddenly observed, it also had three blue eyes staring out at him.

Proto. _Salo krebit_, the atypical Guardian had fallen back to old habits. Proto had taken the notion of lying low seriously, building a new rock-shell around him as camouflage. Nestor couldn't deny the subtle brilliance of the move.

Nestor ran down the beach in a frantic, staggering fashion, hoping to fool Alvin into thinking he was injured and looking for a place to hide. When he got close to the rock pile, Nestor went on one knee and did his best to look exhausted. It wasn't a hard act – the cold was starting to seep in and sap his energy.

"Proto, what are you doing in there?" he said, keeping his eyes toward Alvin, who had stopped to take suggestions from his men on the best way to flay the skin from Nestor's body.

_Formulating analysis of 429's attack pattern. _Proto's eyes were the only part of the Guardian visible, resembling shiny aqua-blue rocks to the unknowing.

"Wonderful, but why aren't you out here beating up on 429?"

_Unacceptable. Damage to human organism cohabitating with 429 highly probable. _

Nestor grunted his annoyance. "Terrific, you won't attack while Alvin is buddying up with 429. Is there anything useful you can do?"

_As mentioned, completing analysis of 429's attack pattern._

"Which means what?"

_429 exhibits predictable behavior during combat. The unit can plot micro-movements and chart probable result of various…_

"Explanations later! What I heard was that you can predict 429's attacks. How does that help me?"

_This unit feeds information to Human Nestor. Human Nestor can them compensate for 429's superior combat ability._

As ideas went, it wasn't a bad one. Nestor had gotten the impression that 429 had been analyzing his moves and compensating for them, which was why Alvin was fighting so blasted well. 429 had to have forged a mental link with Alvin, just like Proto had with Nestor. It remained to be seen which one of the tag-teamers was really calling the shots, as there was no way the obtuse Outcast had thought up those tentacles on the fly.

If Proto could do the same to 429, Nestor stood a chance at turning the tide. The only other option was to get back on Proto and take off, but that would leave Alvin with 429 and 429 with the T-Node, a completely unacceptable option.

"How long before you're ready?" he asked.

_Analysis model complete in 2.54 minutes._

Nestor grunted again. Alvin had taken all the sadistic suggestions he wanted and was now plodding down the hill to fulfill them. Nestor didn't have 2.54 minutes. Alvin would be on him in less than one. Nestor thought about outrunning Alvin, but he had nowhere to go and he needed every ounce of power left in his field for the next round.

"Hope you've said your prayers to whatever gods you worship," said Alvin, having shortened the distance between them by half.

Maybe he needed a different approach. Alvin was your typical brute-class villain; lots of muscles, lots of ego, very little brain. Perhaps it was time to make that little brain work in Nestor's favor.

Nestor stood up and took several hesitant steps towards Alvin, hoping that his shivering came off like a bad case of nerves. He wanted Alvin to keep thinking he had Nestor on the ropes for as long as possible. "We may have gotten off on the wrong foot, Alvin," he shouted. "I suppose if I'd been called small potatoes, I'd be in a bad mood as well."

Alvin stopped in his tracks, glaring at Nestor in confusion. "Boy, you didn't call me small potatoes. I have a good memory concerning who insults me, and that never came up."

"Didn't it?" Nestor said, acting innocent. "My folly, then. I thought all this was over the fact that you're a very small player in the world. Of course, now you have a Guardian working for you… not that it'll change anything."

"What rubbish are you spewing, Outlander?" Alvin sounded too cheerful to be insulted, but his tone suggested that Nestor's words were rubbing him the wrong way.

"Do you really think _one_ steel devil is going to make Alvin the Treacherous into a power to be reckoned with? You know better than that. You're in a world of militant Vikings, ancient necromancers, and steel devils the size of islands… and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Do you really think you're going to take on Berk's dragons that way?"

Not surprisingly, none of this had entered Alvin's mind. Alvin screwed up his face as he thought it over, even bringing a metal hand to his chin and scratching it absently, then wincing when the hand scratched a little too hard. "I'll figure something out, Outlander. Besides, my new best friend here can lead me to other steel devils."

"That thing is out of its mind, Alvin," stated Nestor.

"Yes, and it has good company," replied Alvin with a smile.

"It's also thousands of years out of date. I, on the other hand, know where some of the steel devils are buried right now."

Alvin gave Nestor a distrusting glare and then laughed dismissively. "Are you actually offering to trade information for you life, Outlander?"

Nestor sighed in exaggerated weariness. "I know when I'm beat, Alvin. I can't win this one. But we can both get something out of our unexpected meeting here."

"I already _have _gotten something, you fool," bragged Alvin. "Besides, I know a thing or two about silver tongues, and you have a big one. Once upon a time, your pal Hiccup tried to pull one over on me… and… okay, he _did_ pull one over on me, but I've wizened up since then. No friend of the Dragon Conqueror is going to sweet talk me away from the violence I so richly deserve."

With that, the negotiations came to an end as 429's giant legs resumed their walking, Alvin chuckling as a pair of new tentacles formed from his metal body's midsection. The tentacles waved in the air like irate cobras, growing sharp clamps at the tips that opened and closed like eager mouths, adding to the misshapen design of Alvin's walking weapon. Alvin must not have thought he had enough killing power, as the fingers of both hands lost their shape and merged into a singular appendage on each arm. The appendages then twisted and molded into new shapes, the right one akin to a double-bladed axe and the left one a spike-covered mace. Typical Viking tools of the trade.

It had to have been over three minutes by now. It had to be – it certainly felt like it. But there was no voice in Nestor's head giving him advice or pointing out the weak spot in 429's defenses. Proto was silent, and Nestor was out of time.

Nestor held his ground as Alvin advanced, charged up his field as Alvin came into melee range, and hoped that Proto rusted in his hiding spot as all four of Alvin's metal limbs came in for the kill.


	9. It Will Consume You

**Author's Note**s**:** So we're heading into the homestretch with only 3 chapters (in 2 installments) left (after this one). To reassure, I am currently working on the last story in this series and it _will_ come out this summer.

I'll have a few more things to say in my author's notes before and after the final installment.

Onwards.

**Chapter Eight: It Will Consume You**

When Valha's voice finally penetrated into Hiccup's distracted mind, Hiccup felt like he'd been living on another world the whole time. Somewhere far from any geographical map, a place where monsters didn't exist and the temperature was always just right and painful decisions were somebody else's problem. It was a good place, a peaceful place – the one deep inside his mind, a childhood realm he often went to in his younger days to escape a reality where he had no friends, no respect, and no future. He sometimes thought up contraptions and devices there, and in that wonderful little world they always worked as they were supposed to. No misfires, no collateral damage, no constant failure.

No pain.

He didn't know how long he had retreated into his inner world, but not much had changed in the outer one. The Wyrm now ignored them completely, set in its path for Valha's village. The terrain remained bland and featureless sand, even after miles and miles of travel. Toothless kept right on the creature's tail, seemingly unconcerned with Hiccup's long silence.

"Dragon Rider," said Valha. "We have been following for some time now. Is it not time for a new plan?"

Hiccup glanced at her, hesitating. He had had a lot of time to think in his inner world. He had come to a decision, a very dangerous one. If he was wrong, they would all pay for it in short order. If he was right… well, he may still pay for it anyway.

"It _is_ time for a new plan," agreed Hiccup. "Toothless, hit the speed and get us as far ahead of the Wyrm as you can without losing sight of it."

As predicted, Toothless went top speed, first closing on the giant worm and then passing it. The Wyrm continued its trek without concern as the dragon put distance between them, keeping a parallel course by monitoring the sand geysers kicked up by the monster.

"Are we flying ahead to warn my people?" asked Valha.

Hiccup took a deep breath before answering. This was the official start of his plan, and there would be no backing out after this. By the Gods, he better be right about this.

"Actually, no," he replied. "We're going to do something really stupid-crazy, something I excel at."

"I don't understand," Valha said, her tone slightly suspicious. She must have taken a hint at Hiccup's true intentions. She was about to get a lot more hints.

Hiccup kept an eye of the sand geysers behind them. They were almost out of sight, so he had Toothless slow down as he began to explain himself. He wanted Valha to hear all this before he went full-on stupid-crazy.

"You know what it means to be a dragon rider? It's a lot of work, because dragons aren't like horses or mules that have lived alongside humans for eons. It's a partnership, not a master-and-pet relationship. Toothless and I have logged in a ton of flying time, and we know each other's habits and tendencies inside and out. Yet… yet we still have our disagreements when we fly. Some days we just pull against each other all day long. It's irritating, but it's what happens when you partner with someone."

"What does this have to do with your plan?"

"Well, you see, today Toothless has been perfect. Well, more accurately, he's been perfect since I met _you_. Toothless has done absolutely everything I've wanted him to do, without arguing or complaining or doing his stubborn dragon routine. He's been _perfect_, and I've never had a perfect flight with him in my life. And that's the problem."

"How is perfection a problem?"

Behind them, the Wyrm had shrunk to the size of a harmless earthworm, but they needed more distance. When Hiccup started the next leg of his plan, it was going to happen fast.

"Perfection doesn't exist, Valha," said Hiccup. "The only place it exists is in my mind. Toothless and I work great together, but he's only perfect in my dreams. And there are other things that have felt wrong today. Take for example Lothar, who just got eaten by a giant worm without much ado. A Hyperion dying like that? It's perfectly possible, I suppose. Except I didn't see his barrier field fire up when he was getting sandblasted. I know Hyperions have those – I've just never seen them in action."

Valha had grown silent again, and there was a serious edge to the silence, as if Valha knew where this explanation was going and didn't like it.

"Lothar also sounded a little too much like my friend Nestor for a second there, as if the holes in his personality were being filled in from my memories. And isn't it a little too convenient that he finds us out here in the desert just in time to help us out? In fact, how is it that I keep running into every giant monster that exists in the world? I know the Gods hate me, I'm certain of that, but they don't hate me _this _much."

The geysers were almost too small to see against the dunes now. They had a good lead. Hiccup did the math and deduced it was about time for the turnaround. Do or die time.

Hiccup leaned forward and whispered his next order into his bud's ear. The dragon banked hard to the right, dropped altitude until they were brushing past the tops of the dunes, and positioned them head on to the Wyrm. Toothless took it all very calmly, even though they were now on a collision course and would run right smack into the Wyrm like a fly ramming a fish barrel.

"What is this?" Valha asked. She should've been on the edge of freaking out right now, but she still had that peaceful, airy quality that seemed so soothing before. Hiccup wondered if anything could disturb her, and the thought disturbed him instead.

The Wyrm had decided to stop ignoring them and was now heading right for them, putting on speed and lifting tons of sand into the air as it accelerated. Hiccup felt his heart pumping hard in his chest as he considered how much this plan of his was like a game of chicken where the loser became dinner… and one player had no chance of losing.

That is, if you thought the game was between Toothless and the Wyrm.

"You know what the clincher was? Your name. It was one of the first things you told me, yet it was the last clue I picked up on, because I was still a believer in coincidence until now. My dad doesn't talk about my mom much, but he did me the honor of telling me her name – Valhallarama. Quite a mouthful, which was why my dad's pet name for her was a lot shorter – Valha."

Screwing up his courage, Hiccup unbuckled his harness, swung his legs up and around, and reversed his position so that he was staring straight at Valha and not the oncoming horror before him. Toothless kept right on course as Hiccup engaged in a staring contest with his passenger. He half-expected to see someone different, someone with translucent skin or a corpse-like face or a mouth with rotting teeth. He expected to see something inhuman riding behind him, so convinced that Valha wasn't what she said she was. But the same peaceful face greeted him as before. She didn't act shocked or aghast or even surprised, maintaining her calm façade without any concern for survival. He couldn't pick up any incriminating clues from her serene visage, and that reinforced his suspicions all the more. _No one_ was this calm in the face of death.

"I don't know how you got inside my head," said Hiccup. "I don't know how much of this is real. I don't know what game you're playing or why. But I'm done. If that means I'm about to be worm food thirty seconds from now, then I'm worm food. But I won't be going down its throat alone."

A bellow erupted from ahead, the Wyrm expressing a warning or a challenge as it came for its afternoon feeding. He could hear the creature's army of rushing legs pushing the Wyrm along, growing louder by the second. It already sounded too close, but Hiccup refused to look. This game had to end, and he was facing the one person who could end it.

Valha finally broke up her calm demeanor with a little patronizing smile, as if Hiccup's suicidal course was so very precious. "Isn't this what you wanted?" she said. "A monster to fight, a victim to save? Isn't this better than what you were dealing with before?"

"I'm a Viking, Valha, or whatever your real name is. We face life head on. We face pain head on."

"Noble, but sad. Are you sure you want to end all this fun and go back to your misery?"

The horrid clicking sound that signaled the Wyrm's arrival filled the air. A titanic shadow reared above him, blocking the sun and shading Hiccup for the first time in hours. Hiccup desperately tried not to picture the Wyrm towering over them, its maw wide and angled downward, ready to thrust forward and swallow the tiny prey that had eagerly come to it.

"END THIS!"

Valha shrugged and then nodded her head. "Why not? It's spoiled now, I fear."

The world darkened around Hiccup as the Wyrm descended upon them, the sand and sun disappearing behind a wall of slick flesh and thousands of pointed teeth lining the walls. Hiccup saw the light wink out as the opening in the creature's maw closed behind Toothless, Hiccup's courage snapping apart as he smelled the fetid wind within the creature, heard the gurgles of the monster's inner workings. Few Vikings had ever had the honor of getting swallowed whole by a living creature, and Hiccup fervently wished that he hadn't just joined their ranks.

Had he been wrong the whole time? Had he just willing flown them into a giant worm's digestive tract? Guess he was about to find out.

He sat there in the dark, waiting for Toothless to run into the sides of the monsters and get speared or ground up by its teeth, and he found the creature's breath was growing weaker, the reverberations of its movements lessening. He thought his body had to be growing numb, for he couldn't feel Toothless underneath him any longer, nor the motion and power of flight. There was no sensation of freefall, no sudden impact, no pain, no anything. He reached out to grab Valha, but she was no longer there. He felt downward to find Toothless – no dragon below him.

His mind sought any sensation at all, any pinpoint of light, any touch, but the world had vanished around him, replaced by an endless, soundless void. Panic welled up in him. If this was the alternative to getting eaten by a giant worm, he didn't think it was an improvement.

"Valha!" he called out. His voice sounded like it was coming from a long ways away, as if it wasn't his own voice. "Toothless! Anyone!"

"No need to yell," said Valha's voice in his ear. "I never went away."

The darkness gained definition, a faint glow that had no source turning the shadows into a cloudy mist. The mist had to be the source of the light, glowing like fog reflecting a lantern's luminance. He was literally in the clouds, floating as if one might swim in the ocean. Only he couldn't swim in this foggy realm; no substance to push against and propel him onward. He was stuck where he was in the dimly lit void.

Like a specter rising from a haunted grave, Valha came into view off to his right, floating in the same manner he was. She had no trouble moving about, hovering toward him and halting a few feet away. She was back to her normal calm demeanor, as if everything was the way it should be.

"Where's Toothless?" demanded Hiccup.

"Where we left him," she answered. "At your side, as always."

"I don't understand."

"You will, shortly. I will say, Dragon Rider, that I am impressed by your deduction. Few humans ever determine that they are playing my game. Most want the world to fit the version that lives in their head, and they accept it even with its flaws and contradictions. Instead, you rebelled against it. I find this interesting, and it has been a long time since anything has interested me. Well done – as a reward, I will let you return to your life unhindered."

"That's it? You're just going to let me go?"

"Yes." She started raising her hands as if she was ready to throw some magic around, but Hiccup waved at her to hold on for a moment.

"Wait, wait, wait. If you actually are impressed with me, how about answering some questions?" Hiccup wasn't sure if taking the assertive route was wise concerning the power Valha was exhibiting over him, but he didn't think he could make things worse.

She seemed amused by Hiccup's curiosity, and she lowered her hands. "I will let you have five questions. Ask them wisely, and I may answer them wisely."

"Okay, let's go with the obvious one: who are you?"

Valha chuckled lightly. "That is not as obvious as you think. Any explanation I gave you would be inadequate. I will say this: I have seen this world in many different states – on fire, covered in ice, dominated by mighty creatures who were not mighty enough to save themselves. I was here when your species came to be – I will be here when it comes to naught."

As mysterious as her answer had been, Hiccup decided to let it go at that. He might blow all his questions that way and still not know who, or what, Valha really was. "Why did you do this to me?"

"Do it to you? I gave you something you yearned for, a distraction from your thoughts. I felt your suffering from miles away. It's easy to sense such things in the Desolation. So few living things abide here. I sent you an invitation, and you answered. You came to _me_, if you recall."

"Yeah, I did, but under a false pretense."

"You wanted someone to save. I gave you that someone. I entered your mind and created a monster for you to fight, a quest to undertake. In the process, I felt more intrigued and entertained than I have in centuries. Win-win, wouldn't you say?"

No, he wouldn't say. "All this was because you were bored? That's a bit sadistic."

"Yes," said Valha plainly, completely unapologetic. "But understand that I have inhabited this desert for eons and it is rare when a visitor comes into my domain. You take your opportunities when they present themselves. You have two questions left."

Oops. Better keep the snark to a minimum. "I've never seen Valha before, so I know she didn't come from my head. Did she ever really exist?"

"She did, a long time ago. Her village did exist once, back when the Desolation had life. This was the form I choose to interact with you. She was the last human I had contact with, and her tale was a tragic one in the end, though not by my will. A tale for another time, perhaps."

"Another time?" he blurted out, instantly regretting his reflexive mouth. "Wait, I didn't mean to ask that…"

"Yes you did. You wonder if I intend to haunt you, or to insert my influence into your life. I assure you that I mean you no harm, Dragon Rider. After all, had I a cruel streak in me, I would have met you like this."

The dark-skinned girl and her white robes vanished in an instant, her replacement taking her place a second later. Hiccup's throat tried to collapse in on itself as he gasped in shock, and it took a conscious effort to calm down before he could breathe again, Hiccup squeezing his eyes tight and gritting his teeth and telling himself that she wasn't real, she wasn't really here, she was just another phantom conjured by a cruel entity.

"This person is in your head all the time," spoke not-Valha, only her voice had changed to match the new phantom hovering before him. "Every second of your life, you think of her. This image, this thought, rules you. If you let it, it will consume you."

"Stop it," demanded Hiccup, his words laced with thick anger. "No more questions. Send her away and then send me back!"

"She is gone," said the voice, back to the normal Valha voice. Hiccup peeked a look and saw Valha floating before him instead. The cruelty had been brief, but the pain had been incredibly fierce, like a hot poker through his heart.

"She is not gone from your thoughts, though. Only you have that power."

Still shaken, Hiccup watched Valha as she raised her hands to shoulder height, palm outward, and shoved them in his direction. They never touched him, but he felt a gentle push enfold around him, like getting caught in the ocean tide. Valha began to recede from him, as did the lighted mist that surrounded him, as this transparent force took him speeding away and into the darkness.

His last memory of the being that went by his mother's nickname should have been the serene smile on her face, almost motherly, as she sent him on his way. But that wasn't his final impression at all. Because just before she disappeared into a pinpoint in the darkness, he thought he saw her… change. Perhaps she had let up on her disguise too soon, or perhaps he managed to see through her façade for the merest flash of a second, but what he saw wasn't human at all.

Well, maybe parts of it were, amidst all the tentacles and eyes.

As disturbed as he was, Hiccup found himself very sleepy all of a sudden, his mind clouding over and his body drifting into pleasant numbness as he drifted into the darkness. By the time the darkness was total again, the faint ember of Valha's realm swallowed up in the distance, he was fast asleep.

* * *

He became aware of two things immediately – a funny accent, and the feeling of slippery warmth all over his face.

"He stirs, at last," said the accented voice. "Give him room, Toothless, lest you drown him in your happiness."

Hiccup came awake with his back complaining about the rock bed he'd been napping on and his mouth as dry as a bone. He opened his eyes to a bright world again, only his particular part was shaded by an enthusiastic dragon standing over him, looking at him with unrepentant joy and occasionally sliming Hiccup's face with his tongue.

Another shadow drew knew, this one belonging to Lothar, the dragon standing over him from the opposite direction and frowning. Hiccup could easily guess why Lothar was unhappy with him, but right now he was so relieved to see the Hyperion that he felt little guilt. But he was sure to get to feeling guilty eventually. It was part of his nature.

"Can you hear me, Dragon Rider?" asked Lothar.

"I'm awake, I'm awake," Hiccup replied, patting his stalwart companion's nose and getting his hand licked in the process.

Lothar's frown deepened, making him seem very Arc-like in his disapproval. It must be a Hyperion characteristic. "Zis is vhat happens vhen ze young do not heed zeir elders. You run off into ze Desolation like a man touched in ze head. Vhat did you expect to find, Dragon Rider?"

"Ah… very long story." Hiccup gently pushed Toothless away so he could stand up and stretch out his sore back. He then noticed that he was in the same gorge that he had found Valha, right near the dead end and the cave…

Hiccup rocked back on his heels when he noticed the absence of the all-important cave that started all this. The rock face that had housed it was solid and crack free, as if the cave had been erased from reality. Hiccup looked around to see if he'd been dragged to another gorge while he was asleep, but all the local landmarks matched up.

"Uh, Lothar, do you see a cave here?" Hiccup pointed where the opening used to be.

"Should I?" Lothar stared at the wall for a moment, then shook his head. "Nein, no cave to speak of."

"Did you ever see a cave here, bud?" asked Hiccup to Toothless. The dragon only stared at him as if he'd just asked a brilliantly dumb question. It probably was, at least to Toothless's perspective.

"There never was a cave, was there?" he said to no one in pArcticular.

"Are you okay, Dragon Rider?" asked Lothar. "You're acting haunted."

"I think I _was_ haunted. How'd you find us, Lothar?"

The Skrill nodded his head Toothless's direction. "Your dragon. He never left your side, yet he led me right to you. He vas launching fireballs into ze sky every few minutes, a beacon for rescuers, no doubt."

"Yeah, I taught him that." Hiccup rubbed his pal's face in appreciation, the dragon happily accepting the attention. "It was back when he couldn't fly on his own. In case something ever happened to me and we needed help, he was to send up a fireball every few whiles. Never had to use it until now. These days, I just assume he'll fly off to get help… but there wasn't anywhere to fly off to, was there, bud?" Toothless shook his head, agreeing with Hiccup.

"You've very lucky, Dragon Rider, as I knew of zese rocks and came zis direction," scolded Lothar. "Vhen I returned to ze watering hole, you vere missing. I did see some footprints in ze sand leading out into ze Desolation, which made no sense as you vere vith dragon and had no need of valking, yet I followed them. But zey vere scrubbed avay by ze vind before long, and I had to expand my search. Zat vas vhen I spotted ze Night Fury's beacon."

"You saw the footprints? I guess that much was real." Hiccup looked up at the sky, expecting the sun to be fading and the blue having shifted to a purple or gray color. But it didn't seem to be that much later in the day. There was certainly plenty of daylight left. His battle with the Wyrm had gone on for hours, yet little time in real life had passed.

It had all been in his head. He knew this now. He remembered his first moments in Valha's presence, seeing her on a dais in front of a cave that Toothless didn't seem to be paying attention to. Then a numbing feeling whipped through him and suddenly Toothless could see her and the cave. Suddenly there was a monster to fight and a girl to save. That had to have been the moment when he lost consciousness, slumping to the ground in front of the real Toothless as his mind began to dream of a epic quest supplied by Valha. The whole time he'd been here, sleeping on the rocks.

A terrible thought occurred to him – what if he was still dreaming? True, the dream world had had too many inconsistencies, too many errors due to Valha's imperfect story-telling skills, to be believed for long, but maybe she was better at it than she let on. What if he was in a new dream, a new scenario, still entertaining Valha, still flying through her hoops like a trained dragon? Would he ever really know what was real?

Then his buddy nipped playfully at his hand and Hiccup decided this was probably the real world. Toothless acted way too much like his usual self, right down to the annoying habits.

"You vere tricked by a spirit, veren't you?" asked Lothar. He scrutinized the rocks around him, as if he expected them to come alive and attack them. "I know zis place. I feel ze emanations of old power here. It cannot influence a Hyperion – ve are too vise in ze mystic arts to fall for such tricks. But your mind is unused to such influence. Zat is vhy I varned you."

"I think I'm going to listen to you from now on," said Hiccup. "The thing is… I don't think she was a spirit. She was… something else."

Lothar's frown returned as he looked at Hiccup. "Describe zis 'somezing else.'"

Hiccup did as best he could, and it made Lothar's frown change to a distressed expression, which was not an improvement. "Zat makes it vorse, I fear. Zere are beings in ze cosmos of such power zat you do not ever want zeir attention on you. Perhaps she vas not lying vhen she said she vould let you be… but you can never be sure."

Hiccup didn't reply. He wasn't sure of a lot of things anymore – this just added to the list.

* * *

They returned to the watering hole just as the sun reached its daily zenith and was now heading downward to the horizon. Hiccup and Toothless drank their fill again and snacked on Lothar's special jerky as Lothar explained the general direction they'd be traveling. It made little sense to fly under the withering sun, and the mated pair of Skrills wouldn't return until sundown, giving them several hours more to rest before the journey out of the Desolation began.

They would go to the coastline, a place only slightly less barren than the desert but with far more vegetation and life to it. From there, they would proceed north until they reached the Mediterranean Sea. It would be a journey of many days, but Lothar agreed to it on account of his kinship with Arc. Once Hiccup was in safer territory, he would continue on his own journey.

Lothar spoke little of his search for the Artisan artifact, and what little he did say was disappointing. The artifact's residual power had faded too quickly, and the sands had covered it up too thoroughly. On the plus side, it meant it would be hard for anyone to find. On the negative side, it meant it was still out there, where anyone could find it.

Needing rest for the evening's flight, Lothar dozed in a corner of the cave while Hiccup and Toothless lounged near the front. Having been essentially asleep for a good while, Hiccup had no urge to nap again, not until they had put some distance between them and this desert. Toothless catnapped while keeping an eye out for the Skrills, in case they came back early.

He tried not to think about Astrid or about Valha's final words to him, and naturally he failed on both counts. He wasn't about to take advice from something as enigmatic and casually cruel as Valha, but he couldn't quite dismiss her entirely. Astrid was always there, if not directly in his thoughts then right below the surface, and he could feel his memory of her dragging on him like an anchor on his soul. The irony was that Valha's fictional adventure had made him stop thinking about his loss for a time, even if the choice of adventure left something to be desired.

What now, then? How could he make peace with losing Astrid? She wasn't just some girl he had fallen for. She'd been there for him through his stupid and smart moments, when the storms hit and the sun came out to play. He had felt complete with her. Better than that, he had felt it was okay to be who he was in a world that treated most guys like him like one treated itchy skin. How could he get over that? How would he _ever_ get over that?

Part of him wanted to go back home, find a way to get back some semblance of normality, ask his dad how you went on after losing the love of your life. Home was the place he could heal and maybe learn to move on with his life.

Yet the other part of him, the Astrid part of him, was yelling for him to get off his sorry horse and remember why he joined up with Nestor and Arc in the first place. There was evil out there, evil that threatened everything. He still had friends out there, separated by ill circumstances.

Astrid would never forgive him if he didn't find them. Astrid would never forgive him if he abandoned who he was out of grief. And if they ever met in Valhalla, she would definitely kick his butt until eternity came to an end if he turned his back on everything he had fought for.

He thought about Nestor, the young man that had so dramatically entered his life not so long ago. Like Toothless, like Astrid, he had changed Hiccup's life so much that his old life felt like it belonged to somebody else. Nestor was out there somewhere, probably in trouble, his typical reward for coming to Hiccup's rescue.

He owed it to Astrid, to Nestor, and to himself, to keep fighting. It hurt, and he knew it would hurt for a long time to come, but it was yet another occupational hazard of being a Viking.

No… it was the occupational hazard of being a champion. Courage and perseverance didn't belong to Vikings alone.

He gave Toothless a loving pat, the dragon barely registering it as he dozed, then got up and went for his riding armor, which remained stuck in the sand in a different corner of the cave. He picked it up and took it back to his seat next to Toothless, examined it. Its myssteel finish was mostly unblemished, but it had accumulated a lot of sand over time. It needed some TLC if he was going to put it to use again.

He grabbed a rag from a saddle satchel and started cleaning off the grit. He took his time – he had a lot of it to kill.


	10. The Outcast and The Outlander, Part II

**Chapter Nine: The Outcast and the Outlander, Part II**

_Three steps left._

The mental voice came about so suddenly that it had the opposite effect of its intentions, Nestor skidding to a halt in the middle of a dodge backward. Three of Alvin's weapon-limbs tore in the snowy ground ahead of Nestor, while the fourth one slashed sideways and smacked Nestor's shoulders hard enough to spin him around a full three-hundred-sixty degrees. His field held off the bone-cracking injuries, but the sickly look of his field meant he would start feeling the blows very shortly.

_Inadequate response time, Human Nestor, _commented Proto in his head.

"I know!" Nestor didn't need a literal-minded machine pointing out the obvious right now.

"What do you know, whelp?" Alvin laughed as he retracted his weapon-arms, thinking Nestor had been talking at him. "That you're about to join your ancestors in whatever pathetic afterlife they reserve for the feeble?"

_429 prepping for overhand attacks,_ reported Proto._ Move on my mark._

"A little quicker on the warning next time," asked Nestor.

"What?" said Alvin. "I'm not warning you ahead of time. What kind of moron do you take me for?"

"A pretty big one," said Nestor, unable to resist a comeback, "though your new shiny outfit does improve your looks."

"Nice," growled Alvin. "Here, let me improve _your _looks."

_Two steps backward left, _instructed Proto, a second before Alvin's arms came in, all overhand chops as predicted. Two steps felt like a very inadequate distance, but Nestor did as told and took two steps in a backward-left direction, his arms up to guard from the newest strike that was sure to come.

All four limbs pounded the ground where Nestor had been standing two steps ago, whishing by him so closely that the breeze sent shivers up his spine. Nestor couldn't help showing his surprise at the incredible near-miss, and neither could Alvin.

"Huh. Lucky break, boy," said Alvin, pulling back for another strike. "But unless you've got Loki in your back pocket, your luck's about to run out."

_Four steps right, duck to waist height._ Nestor moved four steps right as Alvin sent all four limbs in a wild flurry of chops and slashes, beating the air seemingly at random. Nestor almost forgot to duck until the axe-limb sliced his way, and he narrowly avoided the head-aimed attack by diving to his knees.

"What is this?" The first hint of genuine anger had crossed Alvin's mind. This was supposed to be over by now, yet the Outlander was getting a second wind. "You think you can keep dancing around me all day?"

"No, I plan to end this pretty quickly," said Nestor, "unless you want to give up right now."

Not impressed with Nestor's renewed confidence, Alvin showed the whites of his not-all-that-white teeth and flailed his limbs around in series of chaotic moves, sometimes chopping, sometimes slicing, sometimes thrusting, sometime whipping. Sometimes all four at once. Nestor didn't think Alvin was this creative a fighter; more likely, 429 was attempting to find ways to trip up Nestor. But each attack was defeated by the simple technique of not being in front of it, Nestor moving a few steps left, then back, then right, then back, then jumping over a knee-high slice, then rolling under two tentacle thrusts. Nestor fully trusted Proto now, and he gave himself over to the monotone music of Proto's instructions, focusing so intently on the machine's words that the actual fight seemed staged, a play performed by an untalented court jester that hadn't realized that the play was a big joke on him.

"AAHHHH!" Alvin's patience had loudly come to an end. Up on the hill, his men shifted their feet and watched the battle with growing uneasiness. Their leader's victory had seemed assured up until now, and none of them were thrilled with how this was going.

As he danced to the tune of _three steps right, stop, two steps back,_ Nestor began to realize he still wasn't making headway against Alvin and 429. He couldn't avoid 429's attacks indefinitely, and he didn't have a clear path to the T-Node in 429's torso. But thanks to Proto's efforts, Nestor didn't have to waste his field on agility and defense. He could put it to better use.

One of Arc's many words of wisdom came to Nestor as he easily sidestepped Alvin's newest melee flurry. He had forgotten the exact wording, but it had to do with the best way to defeat your adversary: letting them do the work for you. As he watched Alvin's attacks grow increasingly predictable, Nestor soon discovered a way to use that bit of off-hand advice.

_Four steps back, _warned Proto for the umpteenth time. Nestor did only three, shifting all his remaining power to his right arm, an angry-red glow enveloping his fist, and held it up as a shield. Three limbs missed him by a wide margin, but one of the tentacles swept in wide to bash him. Proto repeated his instructions to warn Nestor, but Nestor merely held his ground as the tentacle impacted on his glowing forearm and shattered in half, the weapon end flung loose as myssteel fragments scattered to the snow. One unlucky Outcast caught the flying chunk with his helmet and spent the rest of the fight babbling about termites in his rafters.

Alvin's rage-face managed to fit in more rage. "WHAT? HOW?" The limb retracted into 429's torso, disappearing without a trace save the wreckage on the ground. A new one sprouted up in a different location of Alvin's metal-covered chest, a considerably shorter and less impressive tentacle.

Nestor breathed a sigh of relief and shuffled to Proto's next safe-spot, watching for the next opportunity to present itself. He was starting to get a handle of listening to Proto in the back of his mind while plotting his next attack. If he was going to win this, he had to go on the offensive. At full power, his field could wreck havoc on myssteel. The only problem was that his field was so depleted now that he had to divert everything to one limb to do it, leaving the rest of his body defenseless, which would prove painful if he guessed wrong.

Alvin threw a crisscross swipe attack with his two big arms, hoping to catch Nestor in the middle and cleave him in two. He did… just not all of him. Nestor dived to the ground and held up his right arm ramrod straight, sheathed in flowing red energy. Nestor grunted as both limbs smashed into his arm, shattering as before, the axe-limb and the mace-limb sailing away and landing in the churning surf.

Nestor shot back to his feet and charged Alvin, the irate Outcast swinging his two active limbs in a frantic waving pattern to keep Nestor at bay. Proto sounded a warning and Nestor compensated by sidestepping to the right as a tentacle dove into the ground. Nestor lashed out with his arm and severed the tentacle like it was made of parchment, leaving the severed end sticking out of the ground where it struck.

The next tentacle went for his legs, and Nestor diverted power to his right foot as the tentacle snaked around it. His foot stomped and crunched the tentacle beneath his boot heel.

Alvin appeared to be shrinking, at least in terms of his metal body. The mad-eyed Outcast was now swearing in a Norse dialect that Nestor didn't know as 429 shrunk him from his ten-foot status to something closer to seven, his arms and legs back to almost normal size. 429 was losing too much myssteel in the battle, drawing back up the hill on its bird legs. Given time, it might rebuild its myssteel – normal Guardians had that power, and Nestor had to assume 429 would do the same.

He didn't plan on giving 429 the chance.

Alvin retreated up the hill as Nestor rushed him, the Outcast leader driving his right metal arm under the snow, picking up an ice-frosted rock and tossing it at the Outlander. Forewarned by Proto, Nestor was already out of the line of fire, the rock skipping over the ocean's surface a half-dozen times. Alvin desperately tossed three more rocks, all with the same poor result.

The retreat came to standstill when Alvin's path became a cliff, the one cliff on the whole island. It was a short one with less than thirty feet of falling space, but Alvin seemed reluctant to see if his metal friend could protect him from sudden freefall. _He must have forgotten about 429's flight abilities_, Nestor realized. He hoped Alvin would keep on forgetting for a few seconds longer.

Bellowing in infuriation, Alvin swept his arms wide in one last attempt to fend off his attacker. With his weapon limbs in tatters, his arms reduced to the length of his inferior flesh-and-blood originals, he had no chance at all. Nestor dodged them all and jammed his glowing fist into Alvin's metal shoulder, right where a tiny portion of the T-Node stuck out. Metal broke and parted under Nestor's field as he grasped the top of the artifact, struggling to get a good hold. One of 429's tentacles wrapped around Nestor's waist, where it would shortly begin crushing his hip bones, but Nestor paid it no heed and shoved his hand in further, his fingers finding purchase just as the tentacle commenced squeezing.

Nestor's cry of exertion mingled with Alvin's cry of denial as Nestor ripped the T-Node from the Guardian, the artifact flying from his grasp and spinning end over end to fall down the cliff, noisily clattering off the rocks below.

429 shuddered all over, the Guardian going through a series of grotesque transformations as mini-tentacles erupted and receded all over its body, the tentacle at Nestor's waist slackening and sliding off to the ground. The disfigured mostly-metal man promptly fell over on his back, his limbs writhing randomly and his steel skin quivering like a bowl of jelly. Alvin panicked as the metal covering him poked him in places he didn't want poked.

"The devil's gone mad!" he screamed, and Nestor had to agree. Without its proffered power source, 429 was about to self-destruct.

It was more than Alvin deserved, but old habits died hard. He knelt down over Alvin and, with what little power he had left, Nestor shifted his field to both hands and tore into 429's chest plate. Alvin's traditional chainmail armor loomed right below the myssteel, dented by 429's death throes. Nestor wasted no time grabbing Alvin by the neckline and yanking him free of the Guardian, tossing the irate Outcast safely away from the dying Guardian.

Stepping back from the ancient machine, Nestor watched 429 spasm like a dying spider, mesmerized by the lifelike nature of its gyrations. Nestor had never felt guilty over destroying Guardians before – nothing but lifeless automatons created for war. Breaking a Guardian had the same emotional impact as breaking a battleaxe. Yet this time, as he watched 429's limbs slow in their quivering, a morsel of guilt found its way inside him. 429 was like Proto – something different, something unique. Unlike its dark-hearted partner, it had not been evil, just the machine equivalent of insane. Lost in a world it didn't have the "command structure" to cope with.

Satisfied that 429 was no longer a danger, Nestor faced Hiccup's self-appointed nemesis, who was sprawled out on the ground where Nestor tossed him. Alvin wore a new expression on his face, new to Nestor but not new to Alvin. Whether it was due to getting thumped by Stoick the Vast's rock-hard fists or getting his catapults incinerated by the Dragon Conqueror's blasted Night Fury, Alvin wore the face far too often these days. Alvin knew far less than most Vikings who achieved the position of Chieftain (not that it took much in the way of smarts to lead Outcasts) but he did know when he was beat, and he wore the face well.

Alvin remained speechless while he and Nestor regarded each other. Braggarts usually couldn't handle having the tables turned on them, and Alvin had to be waiting for Nestor to start in with the gloating or with the rib kicking. Nestor wasn't in the mood for either. With his field down to almost nothing, two days' worth of exhaustion, starvation, hypothermia, and general anxiety was creeping up on him. His knees felt a little wobbly already. Best to get the T-Node, get back to Proto, and leave Alvin to stew in his defeat. Still, it couldn't hurt to have Alvin fret for a few more seconds…

All of which became a moot point when two myssteel tentacles wrapped around Nestor's shoulder blades and roughly yanked him backward.

* * *

A lot of Nestor's training under Arc had been general wisdom concerning life and the pursuit of keeping one's life in the world of magic and monstrosities, but there were a few lessons that were very important and yet very specific, lessons that could be disregarded for ninety-nine percent of your life and yet crucial for that one percent of experiences that crop up unexpectedly. Say, for example, Arc's analogy comparing Guardians to campfires: in both cases, they're only harmless when they're nothing but ashes.

As Nestor wriggled helplessly in 429's grip, his legs dragging on the snow as he was pulled toward the not-as-dead-as-it-should-be Guardian, the lesson irritated Nestor like a bug buzzing into his ear. Pity and fatigue had stopped Nestor from doing what he should have done – finding 429's powercore and destroying it. All he had actually done was remove the T-Node, and he had naively thought that had done the job.

Now 429 was grabbing onto the only other power source it could find – Nestor.

The worst part was how Alvin's defeated face had departed. The ugly Viking proceeded to laugh hysterically, a high-pitched cackle that stung Nestor's ears like a harpy's wail. Nestor wanted to plug his ears at that moment, but his arms were pinned backward by 429's steel grip. He couldn't reach the tentacles binding him, much less his head.

Then the horrid sucking sensation commenced, the tentacles around his shoulders changing from silver-gray to reddish-orange as 429 stole his power. Nestor tried to shunt power to his legs, but nothing shunted. 429's draining power had hobbled him, and there was nothing to be done but to wait and watch the last of his barrier field flow into the Guardian, his short-lived triumph flowing out with it.

But the sucking sensation ceased abruptly, accompanied by the disturbing echo of steel grinding or ripping into steel behind him. Alvin's laughter morphed into a gasp as two new tentacles whirled in the air around Nestor, these tentacles ignoring the young man and clamping onto the tentacles restraining him instead. The new tentacles flexed with amazing strength, crushing the other ones and forcing them to release Nestor, who found himself flopping to his back on the freezing ground before he could get out his standard exclamation.

Nestor twisted on the ground so he could watch the final battle of the day. To Nestor, it looked like a quartet of steel tentacles had found their way up the cliff next to 429 and were alternatively pulling the Guardian's body over the cliff and batting away its tentacles as the damaged machine tried to defend itself. The new tentacles whipped and darted in precise strikes and blows, crippling every counterattack 429 threw out. One desperate tentacle drove its wicked tip into the snow, only to be yanked back out immediately.

For a long second, 429 was balanced on the edge, struggling like a trapped lion in a hunter's net. Then a fifth tentacle came over the cliff edge and drove into 429's mid-torso, plunging in as if the machine had been made of lard. When the tentacle pulled out a few heartbeats later, it held a crystalline object in its grip. Oval and opaque, it had the barest wisp of light shinning within it, like a candle down to the last of its wick.

429's powercore – its literal heart, exposed at last.

As the powercore left its body, every inch of 429 froze in place at that exact instant. Every tendril locked in place, the machine unable to resist its destiny as it toppled over the cliff and disappeared, a great unseen ruckus of metal colliding with stone echoing upwards moments later.

Knowing that showing weakness was an invitation for more trouble, Nestor stood back up on shaky legs and slowly moved to the cliff edge, hoping to see something positive. He did.

Below on the rocks, Proto stood on three limbs amidst of pile of myssteel glitter and fragments, looking like a confused child that didn't know what to do with the sudden rain of metal that had fallen on it. Proto's head-tentacle gazed up at Nestor, its mental voice silent in Nestor's head. Its fourth limb held the T-Node like it was a prized possession.

"Is it dead?" spoke up Alvin from behind Nestor.

Nestor put a finger to his mouth and hoped Proto took the hint. Proto had finished off 429, and he was very glad for that, but Proto would be useless against Alvin and his men if they were still in a fighting mood. It remained his getaway if he needed it, but Nestor was not about to run from such a brute as Alvin if he could help it.

Nestor turned to find Alvin standing up, aided by one of his Outcasts, the other Vikings gathering around him like a wolf pack. Alvin didn't look all that worst for wear, his cold stare indicating he was not in a bygones-be-bygones mood.

"I don't know what deviltry you play at, Outlander," he said. "I don't know how you got that steel devil to tear out its own heart. But you just cost me an expensive toy, and I mean to get payment from you."

Nestor kept the bafflement off his face until clarity came to him. Alvin thought 429 had destroyed itself. From his angle on the ground, it must have looked like Proto's tentacles had sprouted from 429's backside. Proto and 429 were practically alike physically. It meant Alvin didn't know about Proto yet, though Nestor wasn't sure how that helped him.

Trying to stand as firmly as possible, even though his body felt fitted with sandbags, Nestor glared back at the Outcasts. "I'm giving you guys a chance. Go back to your ship and leave. You saw what I did to the steel devil. Think what I can do to you."

The infuriating quality about Alvin was that he seemed to have bouts of intelligence intermingled with his obtuseness, his hard eyes showing a hint of knowing. "You seem a bit tired, Outlander. I think that fight took a lot out of you. I aim to take out a bit more."

He was right, of course. Nestor's field was all but gone again, and he was doing everything he could just to keep standing. But the fact that Alvin didn't have his men charging him meant Alvin wasn't convinced. Maybe…

A hot rush of fire prevented any further brinkmanship, Alvin's eyes widening as he smelt the fresh odor of molten metal above him. His men cursed in panic as the number of horns adorning Alvin's helmet had instantly gone from six to two, the helmet smoking and sizzling.

From off to the side, the Gronckle with the heavy-set boy riding on top hovered like a hummingbird, its fierce eyes locked on Alvin. Fishlegs tried to look just as fearsome and might have pulled it off had he not opened his mouth.

"No more trouble from you guys. Chomps didn't finish her nap today, and she gets very cranky when she doesn't get twelve hours a day."

To avoid having his hair combust, Alvin grabbed his ruined helmet and tossed it away. That defeated expression was back on his face. Nestor felt a rush of relief at the sight of Fishlegs and his dragon, with the other two dragons and their riders circling overhead. The Monstrous Nightmare roared out a nasty warning, causing the Outcasts to cower slightly in response. They all had bad memories of previous go-arounds with these dragons, and their leader's defeat at the hands of the Outlander hadn't helped morale either.

Alvin closed his eyes, angrily gritted his teeth, and then told his men to head for the ship. "This day isn't ours, boys. Better we live for the next one." He moved to follow them, but like most egomaniacs he couldn't help but get in one last comment, giving Nestor a wicked glare in the process.

"Congratulations, Outlander. You just made my list."

He then patted his head to put out a smoldering hair and headed down the hill towards his ship, carrying what was left of his dignity with him.

The Dragon Squad circled the island's airspace until the Outcast ship had departed, oars in the water to speed their departure. Nestor waited for the Outcasts to get out of sight and then dropped to his knees, feeling exhaustion in every bone in his body. He wanted very much to take a nap right now, even if it meant using the icy snow for a bed, but he didn't have the luxury. He'd settle for a bit of jerky, though. With all the tension of combat fading, his stomach was all but begging for something to digest. Lacking jerky or anything else, he chose to pluck some snow off the ground and suck on that.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut landed their Zippleback first, followed by Fishlegs on his Gronckle, and they ran up to Nestor as he struggled to regain his footing. It was harder than it should've been, and he felt slightly humiliated as a result. With an uncharacteristically caring face, Ruffnut went to Nestor and got under his right shoulder. With a little goading, she got Tuffnut to man the left shoulder, lacking his sister's caring expression but otherwise cooperating. They gingerly moved Nestor toward their campsite down the hill.

Once Snotlout was done yelling insults at the Outcasts from the air, he landed Fenrir and disembarked near the cliff where 429 had met its fate. "So we missed the whole fight? I told you guys we should have come back sooner."

Fishlegs looked confused. "But weren't you the one saying we needed to honor the Outlander's sacrifice and…"

"I meant his sacrifice of time and energy," Snotlout hurriedly interrupted. "I always wanted to come back and save him. You know, like any Viking would do."

"What happened to you guys going to Berk and staying there?" asked Nestor.

"Well, we had a fight over that," said Tuffnut. "I thought we should go home and get help, but no, we had to come back and save Ruff's boyfriend ourselves."

"At least we can say we defeated Alvin again," suggested Fishlegs.

"Well, that helps a little," said Tuffnut.

"Wait, I'm a what now?" asked Nestor.

"My brother's just being an idiot," said Ruffnut, giving Nestor a weird smile. "Well, unless _you_ don't think it's an idiotic idea."

"I'm… um… what?" Nestor stammered.

"Too bad I wasn't here to take on that steel devil," bragged Snotlout. "I would've been all, 'What, you think you're so bad? Here, have a face full of dragon fire.' And it'd be all, 'Not in the face, not in the face.'"

"I don't think it had a face," said Fishlegs.

"Of course it had a face. Everything has a face."

Fishlegs saw something rise up behind Snotlout, who was still too busy being full of himself to notice until he saw Fishlegs wither in renewed terror. "I'm pretty sure_ this_ one doesn't have a face."

Snotlout whirled around and screamed at the steel devil passing the cliff edge to greet them, planting its legs on the snow and walking toward them in a casual manner. Snotlout and Fishlegs scampered past Nestor and the Twins, who managed not to dump Nestor but did manage to deafen him with their mutual cries of terror. Their dragons reared back their heads and cried out warnings to the advancing devil, and it was only due to Nestor's raised and insistent voice that things didn't get very hot for everyone involved.

"It's with me, it's with me!" Managing a little reserve energy, he shrugged off Ruff and Tuff's hands and staggered over to Proto, blocking any potential fireballs. "It helped me defeat 429. It's harmless… a little _too_ harmless, really."

"You made friends with a steel devil?" asked Snotlout, staring in amazement. "Does this mean we're going to have a flock of these things running around our village from now on?"

"No, just the one." Nestor's reassurance seemed to do the trick, as both dragons and dragon riders cooled their attitudes very quickly, though not without wary eyes in Proto's direction.

_Human Nestor, we must discuss the situation, _insisted Proto in its smooth, mechanical voice.

"In a second, Proto," said Nestor, turning to the machine. "Let me square things with these guys first."

"Whoa, it talks?" asked Tuffnut.

"I don't know if that's awesome or freaky," said Fishlegs meekly. "I'm leaning towards freaky."

Nestor turned back to the others, shocked by their reactions. "Hold on. You guys can all hear Proto?"

"You call it Proto?" said Ruffnut. "Who names a steel devil Proto?"

_Human Nestor, now that 429 is non-functioning, this unit must return to Transition Site with T-Node,_ said Proto. Nestor realized that it was his ear hearing the machine talk and not his mind buzzing with the words. Proto had learned how to speak during the battle. Very smart machine, distressingly so at times. He also noticed the T-Node was parked on Proto's upper torso like a large thorn sticking out of its back.

"I understood absolutely none of that," said Snotlout. "It's speaking our language, right?"

Nestor gestured to the Vikings to cut the chatter, then gave Proto his full attention. Nestor tabled his questions about how Proto was speaking aloud now. He knew the answer would be long and tiresome. "Proto, remember what I need the T-Node for? You can't take it back until we use it to find Hiccup and Toothless." Nestor was aware of the troubled looks his words had inspired behind him, but he'd have to deal with Hiccup's Dragon Squad after he got Proto's cooperation.

_T-Node designated too dangerous to leave exposed,_ said Proto. _Safest location is back in Transition Site._

"Understood, but we've already lost too much time recovering it, and we can't afford to waste more time going back there. Can you use it now?"

_Negative. This unit requires analysis time to interface with T-Node._

Nestor groaned. By the Fates, please let it be a low number. "Oo-kay, how much time?"

_Proper analysis can be completed in 3.4 hours._

Nestor breathed again. Not too bad. Judging by the sun, Proto would probably get done before sundown. He could wait down by the Vikings' campsite, where there was a fire burning. He wouldn't freeze to death waiting for Proto.

"Great, then go ahead and get to it." Proto reacted by lowering its torso to the snow and retracting all of its limbs, head-tentacle included, so that it resembled little more than a malformed metal boulder. The T-Node started to come alive as well, the undecipherable symbols on its surface glowing and fading with a steady rhythm that was oddly soothing to watch.

Satisfied, Nestor turned his focus to the four young Vikings who were looking at him in the same disbelieving way most people looked at him when they found out he was a magic-wielder. He couldn't blame them for feeling as they did. They were clearly not going to be satisfied until he explained things a bit better than he had.

"Right, the very long story," he remarked. "By and by, do you guys have anything to eat? I'm kinda starving."

* * *

It didn't thrill the group to be camping again on the same uninhabited rock they had just been held hostage on, but with Proto absorbed in its analysis they didn't have any choice but to park themselves at their campsite and listen to Nestor try to summarize two months of adventure and conflict in three hours.

Clad in a spare fur blanket, chewing on his sixth piece of jerky, Nestor felt loads better than anytime in the last three days, at least physically. The waiting game wore on his nerves, though, and he found it helpful to have something to do. Storytelling proved a great time-waster, even though Hiccup's friends had a tendency to interrupt him every other sentence with an unnecessary observation or an even more unnecessary insult aimed at one another.

It was the last week of events that proved the trickiest to navigate, and Nestor left out a lot of details that weren't relevant to how he got here, or why he needed the T-Node so badly. He also left out one other detail. An important detail, but one he wasn't ready to tell them. One he didn't think it was his role to tell them.

"That's about it," he concluded. "Hiccup and Toothless are out there somewhere, hopefully not far from another one of those artifacts. I don't know what happened to… to Astrid or Arc or Saga or Qiao or Linebreaker. The fact that I'm here is almost pure luck." He hoped that any of the emotional giveaways on his face concerning his lie about Astrid would be construed as part of his exhaustion.

The group was subdued after all that, watching the fire or looking out to the fading horizon or, in Fishlegs's case, patting the sleeping Gronckle at his side. It was a lot to take in, especially learning that two of their good friends were missing in action. Nestor could relate. He was beyond feeling anything close to comfortable, not until he found Hiccup and Toothless, and maybe not even then. He wouldn't feel good again until he reunited with Arc and Saga, however long that took.

"Well, _I'm_ glad you showed up," said Ruffnut, the first to break the long pause after Nestor finished speaking. "You saved our bacon… again." Fishlegs happily agreed, as did Tuffnut after a little jostling from his sister. Snotlout continued staring off into the fire, as if finding solace or distraction in the crackling orange flames.

Nestor shrugged off the compliment. "You guys saved my bacon as well. I wouldn't have lasted against Alvin."

"So what now?" Snotlout's serious question removed what little mirth had been circling the campsite.

"Now I get Proto to send me where Hiccup went." Nestor thought he had already answered this question, but then Snotlout didn't strike him as having paid all that much attention to his lengthy story.

"Which means what? You just hope that Hiccup is okay? How do you know he didn't get whooshed into the middle of a volcano? Or how about the fact that you left Astrid stuck in a cave filling up with the entire ocean?"

"Cool it, Snotlout," said Ruffnut.

"No, I'm not cooling it." Snotlout stood up in a huff, a deep scowl on his face. "I get that you want to defend your boyfriend, but someone's got to say it."

"Why do you keep calling me…?" Nestor couldn't finish his sentence before Snotlout took two steps toward him in a threatening manner, his eyes accusing.

"Our friends may be dead. That's what he doesn't want to say. Our friends may be dead, and he's still alive. The fact that you clobbered Alvin doesn't change the fact that they wouldn't have gone with you to save the world if you hadn't showed up on Hiccup's doorstep and dragged him away."

"I dragged no one away," countered Nestor, feeling his temper start to rise. "I tried to get Hiccup to stay put."

"You should have tried harder. You knew he was just a regular guy, and he had a life here. _Astrid_ had a life here, but she loves Hiccup, stupid as that is, and she runs off to join him in this insane fight of yours."

Nestor picked up on Snotlout's emphasis on Astrid. He had wondered what other suitors had attempted to woo Astrid before she hooked up with Hiccup, though Astrid had never mentioned Snotlout in conversation. Hiccup, on the other hand, had mentioned Snotlout on several occasions, usually in conjunction with words like _bully_ and _insulting_ and _bane of my childhood_.

If he was this put out over Astrid's disappearance, how bad would he take it when he found out the real story? Nestor hoped he wouldn't be around to find out. Right now, he told himself to keep his temper in check and remember that Hiccup had kept this guy as a friend despite the fact that his flaws outweighed his strengths two to one.

"We didn't know how things were going to go," Nestor said in a calmer voice, "but Hiccup understood the dangers and…"

"Did he, or did he go out of loyalty to you?" Snotlout's face had grown as heated as the campfire.

Fishlegs placed his hands on his knees and scrunched closer to Chomps as he nervously watched the escalating argument. Tuffnut sat and watched expectantly – he loved a good argument, especially when it led to violence between two people he didn't particularly like.

Ruffnut watched with growing dread. Usually arguments within the group got settled by Hiccup or Astrid, the sensible members of their squad. Fishlegs came the closest to being sensible except he was often too timid to act sensibly. That left her, and she had no experience deflecting trouble. Her skills lay in the other direction.

"Hiccup is a good man," said Nestor plainly, anger rising within him despite his efforts to quell it. "Astrid w… is a good woman. Those qualities drove their decisions. They're also a lot braver than some."

Nestor wasn't trying to insult Snotlout – the comment slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. Alas, impugning the courage of a Viking was a great way to start a fistfight, and Snotlout took the slight for what it was.

"Well, there's being brave and there's being stupid," countered Snotlout angrily. "It wasn't their fight, and neither of them should've been out there. They're not like you, a deviltry-using freak with no friends and…"

Nestor wasn't consciousness of what he was doing until he found his hands hoisting the young Viking by his shirt, lifting him off the ground as effortlessly as a child lifting a doll. Rage swallowed up Nestor's face as anger fell off of Snotlout's, replaced by the face one made when realizing the presumably-harmless hole you had stepped in was actually a boar trap full of sharpened sticks. Nestor wasn't all that much taller than Snotlout, who still had a few years left to bulk up to average Berk height, but to the panic-stricken teenagers around him Nestor's stature had grown more imposing than two Alvins stacked together.

"My family is out there, you troll," growled Nestor. "_My family_. They're all risking their lives so that guys like you can sit back and act like the poseurs you are. I don't know what's happened to _any _of them. People I care about… people I love. But one thing's for sure - the last thing this deviltry-using freak wants to hear is your idiotic _opinion!_"

"Uh… sorry?" Snotlout whimpered, fear brimming in his eyes.

The weak apology curbed much of Nestor's anger, and he grew aware of his riveted audience. He looked at his arms and saw them glowing a soft red, which was all the power he could generate after a scant few hours of inactivity. More than enough to crush Snotlout's neck, had he reached for it instead of the Viking's shirt.

_Salo krebit_, what was he doing?

He gently returned Snotlout to his feet and let go, Snotlout skirting away in the direction of Fenrir, who had snoozed happily through the altercation and continued to do so. Snotlout gave his dragon a dirty look that all but said _way to come to my defense,_ _pal._

"I… think I need a little time alone," Nestor remarked, the anger gone and replaced by a sad kind of shock that made him feel twice as exhausted as before. He crept off in Proto's direction, leaving the others to stare after him with varying degrees of concern.

"That's it?" remarked Tuffnut. "I thought he was going to rip Snotlout's head clean off."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" countered Snotlout, returning to his spot and crossing his arms so he could hide his shaky hands.

"Well, yeah," Tuffnut replied.

Passing up on a potential comeback, Ruffnut gave Snotlout and Tuffnut her patented _you guys are all morons_ expression and abruptly stood up from her log. Her brother almost asked the obvious question, but by now he was so flummoxed by her recent behavior that he stalled long enough for Fishlegs to speak up instead.

"If you're going after him," Fishlegs said hesitantly, "you may want to let him cool down first."

"Don't worry," she replied. "I can actually talk without insulting someone every other sentence."

The three boys watched her go and then exchanged baffled looks. "She never does that with us," observed Tuffnut.

* * *

When the island you were camped on was little more than a crumb on a navigator's map, there were generally few places to wander off to. Ruffnut found Nestor where she expected him to be – not far from the steel devil he called Proto.

The thing unnerved her worse than any dragon ever did or could, even when all it was doing was sitting in one place and… what'd Nestor call it, analyzing? One of those sage words that never came up in dragon-riding conversations. It didn't help that it resembled one of Gobber's failed attempts at artwork using the metal castoffs from all his iron smithing. It also didn't help that an island-sized version of Proto tried to wipe out Berk weeks ago.

Nestor had found a snow-free rock to rest on, his elbows on his knees, his head slightly bowed. He looked pretty miserable, and after everything he'd told them she honestly couldn't blame him. But instead of making her want to jab him for laughs, an instinct she went with for the other boys in her life when they were hurting, she felt almost the opposite.

Astrid had a big word for it; compassion.

Despite Fishleg's warning, Ruffnut didn't fear Nestor. Bloody noses and black eyes were the typical way most Vikings vented their unhappiness. This guy sulked. She had to admit that she found it refreshing, thought the Viking way was a lot more fun to watch.

She cleared her throat as she neared him. Nestor gave her a quick glance but didn't respond or move to leave. She took that as a sign to continue.

"You know, if you want, Ruff and I could hold down Snotlout and you could punch him to your heart's content. I promise you that no one will care… except Snotlout."

Nestor took her comment as a joke (which it wasn't) and chuckled. "Tempting, but no."

"Okay, how about my brother?"

"Unless you want to explain to your elders why your brother is coming home as a bag of broken mush, it's not the smartest of suggestions."

"Well, then I could teach you some great insults so that the next time you argue with Snotlout you can really get under his skin. The one I like is when you compare his mother to a…"

"Is this your idea of cheering me up?" Nestor finally turned his head, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"Ah… is it working?"

"Not especially. I don't find other people's suffering inspirational."

Ruffnut blew out a sigh. "Look, I'm not good at this… at all. I'm just saying that everyone wants to throttle Snotlout from time to time, so… get over it."

"Thanks. You really _are_ bad at this." Yet a little smile had found its way to his face. "But I give you points for trying."

Nestor motioned to a spot on the rock next to him, and Ruffnut took it, trying not to look too nervous and keeping her eyes more on the dormant Guardian than Nestor. She wasn't used to being close to a guy whose birthday wasn't three minutes ahead of hers, and she was glad that the other guys couldn't see her right now. She'd never hear the end of it – she might not anyway, certainly not from her brother.

"It's not Snotlout, Ruffnut," explained Nestor. "I just… I've been going strong since I woke up in Proto's cave, first trying to survive and then trying to get back the artifact so I can find Hiccup. Now all I can do is wait for Proto to tell me something… and all I can do is think about how screwed up things are."

"I try not to do that," replied Ruffnut. "It takes all the fun out of screwing things up in the first place." When Nestor gave her a disapproving look, she withered a bit. This wasn't going exactly the way she hoped. "I mean, you'll just drive yourself crazy doing that to yourself."

"It's not that easy to stop. Arc… you know, Green Lightning… he's always been there for me. I counted on him to get us through the rough times, and he always did. So here I am, doing all the heroics on my own… and it's all a bit much."

Ruffnut decided to stop giving Nestor sideways glances and look him straight in the eye. He deserved that much, and as she did it she found it wasn't such a scary thing to do. "Well, so far you saved me and my idiot friends, sent Alvin with his tail between his legs, and with any luck you'll be rescuing Hiccup once your new pal, the creepy steel devil, gets back to us." She glanced Proto's direction to make sure it hadn't taken offense. "I don't know how it feels to be in charge of anything – my friends laugh whenever the subject comes up – but anyone would tell you you're doing okay. Even Snotlout, when he's not being Snotlout."

Ruffnut thought she had this "understanding" business down when Nestor's smile widened a little more. The trick, apparently, was to say good things about the other person. She might have a knack for this after all. Then he adopted a curious look that made her squirm inwardly.

"So… I'm your boyfriend?"

She looked away again, silently promising to kill Tuffnut at the next available opportunity. "Oh, that? You know, just an inside joke." She deflected her discomfort by falling back to irritability. "You have enough to think about without hearing about _my_ stuff."

"Actually, hearing about someone else's 'stuff' would be nice and distracting right now."

Nestor's sincere gaze had a way of making Ruffnut feel not so irritated. If it made him feel better, why not? A small repayment for saving her life… again. "Have you ever felt like you've been playing a role for so long that everyone looks at you as 'that role' and not as, you know, you?"

"Can't say that's been my problem."

"Well, it's mine. I'm one-half of a two-person comedy routine in Berk. 'Ruffnut and Tuffnut – what stupidity will they undertake this week?' That's what everyone says back home. Don't get me wrong, it was fun for the longest time, and somebody had to make all those yaks tip over. But now Hiccup and Astrid are in love and out having exciting adventures and I'm still here… still doing the same comedy routine."

Every time Astrid's name came up, Nestor felt his heart stop for a second. Whether or not it was his place to tell Hiccup's friends about Astrid's death, he didn't think he could keep the secret for long before it found a way to burst out of him. For now, he had the presence of mind to keep a lid on it

"Is that really a bad thing?" said Nestor. "Look at what's happened."

"Okay, it's safer to stay home. No arguments there. But Hiccup and Astrid got a chance to try new things, find out who they really are. When do I get that chance?"

Nestor nodded thoughtfully. "And this is somehow related to me being your boyfriend."

Ruffnut felt her cheeks grow warm. She really hoped Nestor would mistake it for frostbite. "Before you left Berk, I told Hiccup that you should… that you should look me up if you ever came around again. The guys heard it and it was a running gag for awhile until they got tired of it. It's like, 'Isn't it funny that Ruffnut might want to have a boyfriend? Doesn't she have Tuffnut already?' I finally had to tell my brother how I felt today, and we don't share stuff like that, so it didn't go very well." Her expression changed as she thought of something? "Did Hiccup ever tell you what I told him?"

Nestor bit his lip and glanced away as he thought how to delicately put his next words. "Well, he did, but I was too caught up with… someone else… to really think about it."

Her cheeks cooled again. She had half-expected an answer like this, but she felt disappointed regardless. Still, she decided the best way to proceed was to do what she always did with bandages: rip them off fast.

"The Seer, right?" she asked.

Nestor nodded, surprised by her observation. "How did you know?"

"I'm good at figuring out everyone else's love life but my own," she replied dourly. "You two seem to find a way to be around each other all the time. Which is funny since she tried to kill you right off the bat."

"Ah, yeah, it was a rocky start."

"Don't all the good ones have rocky starts?" Ruffnut sighed.

"I imagine. But I deeply care for her, Ruffnut, and she's one of the few hopes I have that's keeping me sane right now."

Ruffnut heard the sincerity in his voice and decided right there that her little flirtation had gone as far as it was going to go. She shrugged in resignation. "If I thought about it for long I'd have to admit that you're not really my type. Seriously, you're just too…" She spread her hands wide in a weird gesture that told Nestor nothing. "You keep saving my life, though, and that does makes a girl feel good. But I'm smart enough not to come between you and your girlfriend."

Nestor had wanted a good distraction and he was certainly getting it, but this honest discussion was quickly becoming _too_ distracting. He almost corrected Ruffnut on the fact that he and Saga hadn't quite gotten to an actual romantic relationship, but he realized that such a statement might give Ruffnut the wrong idea.

"You seem like a nice girl…"

"Wow," she interrupted. "You _really_ don't know me, do you?"

"Oo-kay, you seem like someone trying to break out of the rut you've created for yourself. Respect that and don't let your brother and your friends dissuade you from finding what you really want out of your life. That better?"

She had to admit it – that was better. Disappointment still circulated in her heart, but it was nice to hear someone say it was okay to be Ruffnut and not just Ruff and Tuff. It even made her smile.

Before the conversation could get any more honest, a burst of sudden activity from Proto derailed it. Proto's legs reappeared, as did his tentacle-head, and Nestor stood up to greet the Guardian as it purposefully stepped his way. Nestor felt like a kid right before his first trip to the local Harvest Festival, hoping the payoff was worth all the anxious waiting. Ruffnut kept a discrete distance behind him, not quite warmed up to the "creepy steel devil" and preferring to let Nestor take point.

"What do you have for me, Proto?" he asked hopefully.

Proto began to tell him how much it had. It proved to be quite a lot.


	11. Figuring Out How To Go On

**Author's Notes:** I'm going to ramble on a bit here. Uninterested parties should skip down to the actual story.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the story, Dreams was designed as a side-story dealing with how Hiccup picks himself up after Astrid's death (and obviously some attention paid to Nestor and his problems). I felt it was a moment that deserved more attention than it would have gotten if I had attached the plot thread to the final story in the arc. So I did it here. It certainly was not the happiest of stories, but I do promise that the next one will not have the same flavor. I do think good writing requires all emotions to be at play and that you have to take risks at times if you want to make a story truly memorable.

The **other** objective was to test-drive a few possible characters and plot devices not for the final story, but for future endeavors. I'm always thinking ahead even though I technically haven't finished the final story, and I thought it would be good to use this side-story to introduce some new elements and see how it went. So if a plot thread appears wrapped up in this story, you shouldn't expect it to show up in the next.

To be honest, this story officially ends at the conclusion of _this_ chapter. The next chapter, titled "Four Final Details," lays the groundwork for the future… except _one_ of the "four details" I talk about _is _important to the final story. I will leave it up to the reader to determine which "detail" matters – I'm sure it's fairly obvious. As for the rest, I don't know how, where, when, or in what order these elements will show up after The World Needs Champions, but if you were intrigued by a character or situation, let me know.

As always, I thank all you readers who have stuck with my interpretation of the _Dragons_ universe. I hope you have, and will continue to, enjoy it. I still have plenty of material in me, and while I think hyperbole is a dangerous thing, I mean it when I say I plan on making the last story in this arc as epic as possible.

Onwards.

**Chapter Ten: Figuring Out How To Go On**

Hiccup had sworn off sleep until they could find a new place to camp, but sleep hadn't sworn off him. It was why he felt so alarmed when the last memory he had, where he was polishing his myssteel riding armor for no real reason other than to stay occupied, didn't quite match up with the experience of getting bumped groggily to his feet by an excited Night Fury, Toothless raising his back in expectation of a new threat, or perhaps an old one come around again.

_Don't let this not be another mind-screw,_ he thought as he stood, his armor and rag sliding off his lap. Gods, how could he allow himself to fall asleep again? Every time he woke up in the cave, something crazy happened, and it looked like this time was no different.

He could hear what had set off Toothless – a crunching noise, like rocks being ground apart in a mill, close by the cave. Interspersed within the crunching were heavy footsteps that grew louder as time passed. Somebody was coming this way from off to the left of the cave entrance.

The daylight was waning, the sky darkening in preparation for sundown, but it hadn't gotten there yet. The mated pair of Skrills shouldn't be back, and Hiccup didn't think your average Skrill would be walking up when they could fly in. But if not the Skrills, who else would be showing up?

He saw that Lothar was gone from his napping spot, and he had to put a hand to his mouth to stifle a moan. Perfect. What could be so important that Lothar would leave him without warning right before they were about to flee the Desolation? If the Skrills really had returned early, there'd be no sweet-talking them out of a fight without the Hyperion present.

The first indication that it wasn't a Skrill approaching was Toothless, the dragon lowering his back slightly and tilting his head as if less agitated and more curious or confused by the footsteps. Hiccup didn't know what to make of his dragon's behavior – it was like Toothless recognized the footsteps as belonging to someone he knew, but couldn't quite accept that they were here in this land. The dragon's confusion made Hiccup's pulse rev up in anticipation.

The second indication that it wasn't a Skrill was when a fat human face furtively peeked around the side of the cave, biting his lip and staring into the shadows with timid eyes.

"Anyone in here?" called out Fishlegs in a hesitant tone. "If you are, please don't be hungry and annoyed."

Hiccup could scarcely believe it. In fact, he _couldn't_ believe it. After the monstrous mind game he'd just been through, this seemed like another cruel trick, another malicious game that Valha had set before him. Plucking more memories from his mind to mess with him. As such, he didn't answer or move when Fishlegs called out into the cave again. This was too unreal, even for…

Toothless did the moving for him, bounding out of the cave so quickly that Fishlegs shrieked in surprise and fell back on his fanny while the Night Fury licked him in greeting. The oversized Viking's shriek turned to relieved laughter as he got back up and patted the dragon's snout.

"Yay, you're where Lothar said you'd be," he said. "But where's Hiccup?"

"Legs?" Hiccup found his feet taking over the conscious decision-making, moving him toward the entrance while his brain wrestled with this new development. Toothless was certainly acting like Toothless, and Fishlegs was definitely acting like Fishlegs. If this was another mind screw, Valha was doing a better job of it.

"HICCUP!" The overjoyed mini-giant raced over to Hiccup and bear-hugged him so fiercely that Hiccup was sure all his ribs were reduced to bone splinters by the end of it. The hug certainly felt all kinds of real.

Unable to wipe the dazed look off his face, he looked past the cave entrance and saw Chomps eagerly biting down on the loose boulders around the rock formation, grinding them up between her molars. That explained the crunching. Gronckles were fond of eating rocks for some enigmatic reason, possibly because their teeth were always growing and it was a good way to wear them down. Chomps gave Hiccup a friendly dragon smile before resuming her stone diet.

"Sorry, she likes to try out new rocks on foreign soil," explained Fishlegs. "Hope she didn't scare you."

"I'm okay, Legs," he said, finally banishing his shock. He felt a smile coming on. As insane as this was, it all felt very right. "Legs, how did you…?"

A dragon cry from behind Fishlegs drew their attention. Two very familiar dragons were flying in from the west, one Nightmare and one Zippleback, and their riders whooped in delight as they came in fast and incautiously. Barf-Belch took the landing somewhat ungracefully, not used to the loose sand of the desert, and its two riders went spilling onto the ground. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were quite used to the abuse and they were up on their feet and racing to Hiccup, embracing him between them. Fishlegs was so caught up in the moment that he proceeded to squish them all in a new bear hug.

Fenrir came down more gracefully and let his rider dismount without incident. Snotlout didn't race to Hiccup like the others, but he did have a sincere smile on his face.

"I can't believe Fishlegs beat us here," he commented to the group-hugging Vikings as he walked up, trying to look cool with all of this. "It's all this darn wind and sand BLARGG!"

Snotlout wandered too close to Fishlegs and was immediately grabbed up by beefy arms and pulled into the hug. He tried to complain about it as not being "manly" but he finally quieted and let things be for a few happy moments.

When the hugging was done, Hiccup stood before his old Dragon Squad with the first real smile on his face in days. Seeing them all was the best thing that could've happen to him right now. It was also the craziest, and he asked Fishlegs, again, how they were standing here right now.

"Well, we had a little help," said Fishlegs with a smile. He nodded off to the west, where two more dots in the sky were quickly shaping into two more dragons…

No, not two dragons. One was definitely a dragon, and Hiccup was thrilled to see the spiky Skrill named Lothar had not left him at all. He was about ready to give Lothar the credit for somehow getting his friends here because he still didn't recognize the other thing. It shined in the fading sun like it was made of polished silver, but it had no real shape to speak of…

Hiccup's heart was having a difficult time with all the constant revelation-based surprises. It was a Guardian, of all things. Its body was shaped like a crab shell, and someone was riding on top of it like it was a dragon, but it couldn't be anything else but a Guardian. That didn't make any sense at all.

Then he recognized the rider. Things didn't make that much more sense from the latest surprise, but it made things that much better.

Lothar and the Guardian landed near Fenrir, the rider jumping off before touchdown and landing in the sand with a blast of orange. Hiccup walked out to meet him halfway, feeling like he could cry.

Dirt-covered, exhausted, and looking like he had tangled with an army of wild boars, Nestor walked with a warm, relieved smile on his face. One more friend saved from the grip of death. One more hope rekindled.

They walked into each other and embraced like two long-lost brothers, unable to get anything out more than an occasional laugh, unable to verbalize their trials and tribulations for now. It was like an ocean voyage through a hurricane, riding out a hundred horrible moments where your ship threatened to sink under you, only to finally make it out from under the storm, where the sun was there to greet you and your loved ones.

Except…

Hiccup was taken aback by how quickly it came over him. The wall he'd been building within him, the one he sought to erect to get him through the trying days to come, was cracking in several places. It was Nestor's smile – friendly, relieved… and strained.

Nestor knew, and he was trying not to show it. Nestor knew, and he was trying not to say it. And somehow it made it all come crashing down on him again. His embrace grew stronger as his grief bubbled up, and he felt Nestor's grip tighten in response.

"Nestor…" he got out, before the tears robbed him of his capacity to speak.

"I know, Hiccup," Nestor quietly replied, choking up. "I know."

Lothar approached from Nestor's back and bowed his head. "Zey do not know yet, do zey?" he quietly asked.

"No," said Nestor. He knew who _zhey_ were, Hiccup's friends looking on in confusion, sensing the sudden change in mood. "But they need to."

They didn't stay confused for long.

* * *

In many ways, Lothar was proving to be the anti-Arc of Hyperions. The more he interacted with Hiccup and Nestor, the more his people-skills began to sharpen. Lothar helped to explain to Hiccup's friends the terrible news. It hadn't taken much convincing; Hiccup's tears had done most of the convincing for him.

Hiccup leaned on his always-faithful dragon while the others sat in a circle on the hard sand, taking the news of Astrid's death as well as could be expected. His wings folded behind him, the Skrill stood as a consoler and offered perspective where he could, though all the perspective in the world couldn't dull the sadness of losing a good friend.

Fishlegs had his knees drawn up to his chest and tears running down his thick cheeks. Ruffnut kept her hands on her face in a futile attempt to hide her own tears, her brother with his arm around her shoulders and an expression of surprising sympathy. Snotlout just looked… angry. Wordlessly, inconsolably angry.

Nestor kept his distance, along with Proto. He felt too guilty to join the circle, not after lying to them about Astrid's fate. It made sense at the time to hold off on the revelation until the time was right, but most folks didn't take kindly to being led on or lied to. Besides, they weren't his team. They were Hiccup's, and it was Hiccup's role to lead them through this trying time.

_What is this gathering, Human Nestor?_ asked Proto, his voice casual and unemotional.

It didn't surprise Nestor that Proto would ask such a question, but the simplistic inquiry disturbed Nestor. "They're mourning a friend, Proto," he replied in a low tone. "That's what human organisms do when they lose another human organism they care about."

_Did the human organism have a designation?_

"Astrid."

_Astrid's location unknown?_

"No, Proto, she's dead. Do you understand what death is?"

Proto paused, no doubt searching his command structure for the definition. _Death defined as permanently nonfunctional. _

"Sounds right. It's one of us becoming permanently nonfunctional." Nestor tried to keep calm as he talked, but this conversation was rubbing him wrong. Any intelligent being, human or dragon, understood pain when they saw it. To not understand it marked you as psychotic or dangerous. Proto could research the definition of death, but it may not ever understand it. You had to have emotions to understand.

_429 is also permanently nonfunctional,_ observed Proto.

"Yes, it is." An obvious thing to say, but he didn't have sage wisdom to give that was machine-appropriate.

_This unit and 429 were designed to act in tandem, cohabitate, work together to maintain Transition Site. This unit not prepared for 429 to be… nonfunctional. This unit… will have to compensate for 429's absence in the Transition Site._

Nestor looked at Proto with newfound amazement, surprised by the machine's statement. That was how people dealt with death in the end – figuring out how to go on. When his own parents died, he had to learn that lesson himself. It was a bitter lesson indeed. Now he felt bad for judging the machine as harshly as he had. It did understand death… all too well, it seemed.

Then it occurred to him that Proto was still set on returning to that miserable cave, to fulfill his ancient duty, and that struck him as… well, unacceptable. Without Proto, he wouldn't have made it very far. He might have been marooned on that inhospitable island until he starved to death, and he certainly wouldn't have gotten the T-Node back, or have saved Hiccup's Dragon Squad from Alvin. He owed Proto for his help. More than that, he liked Proto, even if conversing with the machine for long gave him headaches.

Proto didn't deserve to go back to that cave.

"Proto, do you _want_ to go back to the Transit Site?" he asked bluntly.

Proto's head-tentacle weaved to face him. _Question not understood._

"If you had a choice, if left up to you, would you return?"

A longer pause this time. Proto, who was in a constant state of analysis every second of its existence, must not have ever considered such a question. _It is this unit's duty to…_

"Proto, they're all gone," interrupted Nestor. "The Artisans are gone, permanently nonfunctional. There is no more reason for you to be there. Chances are good that if you go back, you'll get as corrupted as 429 eventually."

_Valid reasoning. What is alternative?_

Nestor opened his arms wide. "You have plenty of alternatives. There's a whole world of choices out there for you, if you want them. The question is, what would be your choice?"

There came the longest pause yet from Proto, and for a moment Nestor feared he may have erred by giving the machine a choice. Maybe it wasn't designed to make its own choices. Decisions were hard. Most people were bad at making decisions, so why would a machine designed to obey rules react any better?

_This unit… chooses to stay with Human Nestor_, Proto answered,_ if Human Nestor finds this choice acceptable._

Nestor had a feeling Proto would choose to stay with him. A Guardian needs his engineer, and he was the closest thing Proto had to one. But he still felt warmly touched by Proto's words. On a day full of thoughts about lost friends, it was always good to gain a new one.

"It is… acceptable, Proto," he said.

* * *

Seeing the others in tears soon grew too much for Hiccup, and he excused himself before another dark cloud could suck him in. He just couldn't be by them right now. He was just barely under control as it was.

Yet he couldn't take his eyes off them, even after walking over to Nestor and asking him to tell his tale of enigmatic Guardians and old enemies. Such was the allure of grief, especially when you were grieving as well. He listened to Nestor's story, but his heart was with his squadmates and their pain, and he heard only half of it at best.

The squad's dragons were meandering nearby, trying to find things to nibble on or chase down other than rocks and dirt. Outside of Chomps, they weren't having much luck. Toothless kept to Hiccup's side, the dragon protective of his rider in the presence of Nestor's new friend, the Guardian named Proto, who stood near Nestor like the world's least-inspired statue. Hiccup might have been alarmed or fascinated with the machine ordinarily. Right now, he was too numb to be curious.

"… and then Proto tells me there's enough power left in the T-Node to take all of us here," continued Nestor, talking to Hiccup's backside without any hint of irritation at being somewhat ignored.

"You shouldn't have brought them," said Hiccup, still focused on his friends. "You didn't know what you were bringing them into."

"Actually, I did," countered Nestor solemnly. "Proto 'read' the T-Node that was left here, connecting himself to the Network, or what's left of it. He described the environment, and though it didn't sound like a great place to build a summer home we thought it was safe enough to come through together. They wanted to find you, Hiccup, just like me. Besides, I couldn't exactly stop them. Your friends aren't real good at obeying authority."

No, there weren't. But he loved them anyway.

"Proto also listed the most recent teleports to go through, which was you and me. The best guess we have as to why we ended up in two different locations was that the lack of a control system sent us on random journeys. That, or my barrier field messed things up. Or it could be the anomaly Proto mentioned."

Hiccup turned around and gestured at Nestor to elaborate. "What I got out of Proto's explanation was that there had been an unsuccessful teleport at some point in the past that Proto hadn't detected until now. Apparently, if you use a T-Node improperly, it's possible to get trapped between destinations, in something Proto called The Fold. An object, or person, gets stuck in limbo until someone comes along and fixes the problem. We were lucky that it didn't happen to Toothless, Nestor, and me, but it **did** happen to somebody… or something."

"Something?" Hiccup hated that word. It was almost as bad as _it._

Nestor shrugged. "No idea. Proto couldn't tell how it got in the network. Proto then tells me that we had to clear it out or it might interfere with our travels again. So before we came here, Proto tried to bring it to our location, to force out the unsuccessful teleport. If it was hostile, we'd have the dragons deal with it. If it was useful or friendly, we'd take it with us. But much to our surprise, there was apparently one more active T-Node on the network. Somehow, the teleport went there instead. Proto couldn't tell us why. "

It was Hiccup's turn to shrug. "Maybe it's for the best. We really didn't need any more problems than we already have. So is the T-Node safe to use or not?"

Nestor nodded. "We now have the control we need to use the T-Nodes one last time."

Hiccup found himself staring at Proto and the pyramid-shaped device sticking out of its back. According to Nestor, this T-Node was the one previously buried in the sands of the Desolation. Upon teleporting into the desert, Proto immediately sniffed out the artifact Lothar had spent days searching for and dug it out of its sandy resting place so they could access it later. The one Proto had been tasked with maintaining for eons was back on Last Gasp. The T-Nodes can't teleport themselves, but they can be carried around to different locations without ill effect. That was why they were kept in sealed chambers for the most part. How this particular T-Node came to be left out in the Desolation was a mystery that Hiccup couldn't care less about.

Lothar had been sound asleep when the T-Node activated, and his Hyperion-enhanced Skrill senses had gone off like a thunderclap in his head – his words. Seeing that Hiccup had fallen asleep and not wishing to disturb Hiccup from a peaceful slumber, Lothar took the initiative and went investigating. He later apologized for leaving as he did, but it all came out good (or as good as it got). He ran into the gang while they were flying circles over the desert, unsure of where to start their search. Lothar recognized Nestor from conversations with Arc (the dragon couldn't stop talking about "his boy," it seemed) and he directed the group to Hiccup's campsite in the cave.

In the process, Lothar had reassured Nestor that Arc was alive. Hyperions were connected together by their essences, and Lothar would've felt Arc's demise if he had perished in the Repository. Nestor had been overjoyed at the news, and not just for Arc's sake. If his dragon mentor had survived, there was a good chance Saga and the others had as well.

"One last time?" asked Hiccup. "Are they out of power?"

"Almost," said Nestor. "The T-Nodes were all experimental, and apparently they drain powercores at an insane rate. Proto estimates that we have enough fuel left for one safe teleport. After that, you'd have a better chance of survival getting swallowed by a great white shark."

"Maybe it would be better if we _all _went back to Last Gasp. It might be closer to Riki Poka than this place."

"So you're pondering what I'm pondering. Going back to Riki Poka."

"Right, to find Arc and the others. Hopefully they have the same idea."

Nestor nodded, then gestured in Lothar's direction. "Lothar is an expert at navigation. I chatted with him during our brief flight together and he said that we're in Northern Africa and not all that far from the coastline. We could possibly reach Riki Poka in less than two weeks, as the dragon flies. From your home, it'd be closer to three weeks."

"So I get to see more of this wonderful desert. Whoopee." Hiccup's sarcasm came out thick enough to eat with a fork. "But at least we can send the gang home."

"We can send _everyone_ home, Hiccup," clarified Nestor.

Hiccup narrowed his eyes once he caught the gist of Nestor's words. "You're doing it again, you know."

"Doing what?"

"Trying to convince me to stay home. I thought we were past all that."

"Hiccup…" Nestor shook his head, frustrated. "You need to be with your friends and family now. You suffered a loss, a big one. No one can ask you to go any further. I can't ask you to…"

"You're not asking!" blurted out Hiccup. "You've never asked. That's the point. My reasons for coming with you haven't changed."

"Hiccup…"

"Do you think the fight's over? Tell me you think the fight's over, and I'll go back home. Tell me honestly." His words were harsh, his eyes all but daring Nestor to lie to him.

Nestor sadly shook his head again. "You know I can't say that."

"And I can't go home until this is over." He pointed a finger at his own chest. "Remember, Viking? Stubbornness issues and all that?"

"If you're trying to prove something…"

"I'm trying to stand for the one thing worth standing for," said Hiccup. "Astrid stood for the same thing, and I know she would want me to keep fighting."

Nestor could see the determination on Hiccup's face. This conversation was a lost cause, and he knew it. "Okay, then this is the last time I try dissuading you. You're right – we're past this. I just want to say…"

"Don't," said Hiccup.

"I was going to say…"

"You don't need to. But right now… I _really _need to change the subject," pleaded Hiccup. "Please."

Nestor nodded, seeing the pained look in Hiccup's eyes. He understood all too well. Talking about something didn't always make it better, especially when the wound was as raw as this one was.

"How about we talk about Alvin?" suggested Nestor.

Hiccup groaned at the mention of his chronic adversary. "I honestly thought he was done with me, that he contracted scurvy or something and was laid up on Outcast Island. I hadn't dealt with him in over six months."

"Yet you never mentioned him once," pointed out Nestor. "Why?"

"I asked my dad that after the first time I tangled with Alvin. Dad had kept him out of our bedtime stories, so I didn't know much about him until he tried invading Berk a while back. Dad said guys like Alvin live to be recognized and remembered. They live for their reputation. The best way to defeat them is to act like they don't exist… along with banishing. That part's important."

Nestor eyed Hiccup suspiciously. "That's it? Most people trumpet their victories over two-dimensional villains like Alvin, but they're quiet about the bad things, the things they aren't proud of."

"Well…" Hiccup shifted his feet, hesitating.

"C'mon, Hiccup," insisted Nestor. "I had to fight one of _your_ enemies for a change, and I almost died in the process, I might add. The least you could do is give me the whole reason why he was _persona non grata_ in your stories."

Hiccup didn't appreciate the guilt trip, not in the mood he was in, but he couldn't deny the fact that Nestor had walked blindly into a fight with one of the bigger threats in his life. He sighed, secretly kicking himself for asking for a change of topic without being specific.

"You have to understand the Alvin's goal is to figure out how to turn dragons into weapons, and he was so determined that we had to train more and more dragons not because it was a great way to travel or because they were part of our lives, but to become _exactly_ what Alvin wanted them for – weapons. It got bad enough that after my last battle with Alvin we had half the village rallying for a counterattack. I'm talking scorched earth – reducing Outcast Island to embers and ashes. People were tired of Alvin and they wanted a final solution.

"I remember feeling horrified at the idea. I helped train a lot of those dragons that would be going out to destroy all those Outcasts. I had to argue long and hard to convince my dad to stand up to the crowd, and he did. It helped that he agreed with me, that he believed there was a line you crossed before you became just like Alvin and we were right up against it. So there wasn't a full-scale attack and we went back to a more peaceful lifestyle. It helped that Alvin disappeared for a time, though obviously he wasn't done scheming."

"Sounds like it all worked out okay," observed Nestor.

"Yeah, except that the Gunnarr got wind of some of our exploits and it put them on war footing," said Hiccup. "We traded the somewhat incompetent Outcasts for the far better organized Gunnarr. You know the rest."

"So that's why forming a Dragon Squad was such a big deal to you," asked Nestor. "You were afraid of crossing that line between who you are and who Alvin is."

"Silly, right?" said Hiccup.

"Hardly," Nestor said softly, a wistful look in his eyes. "I almost blew past that line myself today, and with Snotlout of all people."

Hiccup chuckled once at mention of Snotlout. "Yeah, he can bring out the worst in anyone if he tries hard enough."

Nestor chuckled as well, satisfied with Hiccup's explanation. Then his face grew serious again. "Lothar mentioned you had some kind of mental battle?"

"That's something I want to save for another day," insisted Hiccup. "It hit a little too… close." He patted above his heart to get the point across, and Nestor nodded his acceptance.

The sun was touching the horizon now, the heat fading with the daylight. Night would be on them soon, Hiccup realized, and they couldn't linger any longer at the watering hole without inviting trouble from the resident Skrills. There would also be worried adults back at Berk, anxious for their wayward and troublesome youth to come home.

He hated leaving things like this, giving his friends a heavy dose of heartbreak and then sending them on their way, but their time was up. All that was left was to say their goodbyes again… and hope that their goodbyes weren't final.

* * *

The Dragon Squad Vikings must have noticed the lateness of the hour and had risen to their feet as Hiccup and Nestor approached, their expression only slightly less devastated than before as they awaited Hiccup's orders. Snotlout avoided eye contact with everyone, too angry or too miserable to interact, but he was the exception.

Ruffnut provided the last big surprise of the reunion. She didn't even give Hiccup and Nestor the chance to open their mouths before she opened hers and uttered the most surprising thing she'd ever said, topping all the other surprising things coming out of her mouth lately.

"I'm coming with you guys."

The others weren't sure they heard her right. Tuffnut appeared to be having a brain malfunction, his lips moving unintelligibly. Nestor took the declaration the calmest, half-expecting something like this thanks to his prior conversation with her. Only Lothar and Proto, the other members of the group who had the means to voice their opinions, had no reaction. They watched the ensuing discussion passively and curiously.

"Ruff, this better be a joke," said Tuffnut, getting his lips to work properly.

"Why would you think it's a joke?" she shot back, wiping a few lingering tears off her face.

Tuffnut, never one for entertaining complex thoughts, was in over his head. "Because… ah… guys, help me out."

"Ruff, if this is about Astrid…" started Hiccup.

"It is," she admitted. "You better believe it is. But you need the help, and this is the last chance I'll have to give it. Unlike you guys, I was paying attention when Nestor was talking to Proto. If we go home, we won't be able to come back… and I'm not staying home when I can do something to help."

"Maybe we should sleep on this," said Fishlegs. "Talk about it tomorrow?"

"How about a week?" said Tuffnut.

"We can't stay any longer," said Hiccup. "We decide this now." He adopted his best Dragon Rider face, the one that supposedly exuded authority but usually elicited laughter from his friends, and looked Ruffnut straight in the eyes. "It's a good offer, Ruff…"

"What?" exclaimed Tuffnut, before his sister's fist found his stomach and silenced him again.

"It's a good offer," repeated Hiccup, "but on your own, I'm not sure what you could do."

"I'm not on my own. I'll take Barf-Belch." She waved to the Zippleback behind her, whose two heads were watching the heated discussion with rapt interest.

"WHAT?" Tuffnut dodged back before receiving an elbow to the chest. "You can't be serious!"

"You can hitch a ride with Snotlout or Fishlegs," explained Ruffnut.

"Not the point. He's _our_ dragon. Do you even know how to fly him alone?"

Ruffnut opened her mouth to reply, then closed it when she realized her brother had a good point. "Okay, there'll be a learning curve…"

"You do realize we're going up against some serious threats, Ruffnut," stated Nestor calmly. "Enemies that make Alvin look as dangerous as a chipmunk."

"Not to mention you're leaving _me_ behind," added Tuffnut. "ME! We're Ruffnut and Tuffnut! Guys, you're not doing a real good job of changing her mind."

"I'm not trying to," said Hiccup. "Ruff, honestly, I don't want to put any more of us in the line of fire. But I'd be crazy if I said we didn't need the help, and a hypocrite to boot. If you want to do this, I won't stop you."

"This is crazy," Snotlout remarked morosely. "But crazy seems to be the order of the day."

Realizing that she really only had one person to convince, Ruffnut turned to her brother, who stared at her with genuine fear. But instead of insults or fisticuffs, she put a reassuring hand to his shoulder. It was possibly the warmest gesture shared between the siblings that didn't ultimately lead to violence.

"Tuff, this is important," she said. "This is bigger than you and me. I've been kicking myself ever since I watched Hiccup and Astrid fly off together. I wanted to go with them, and I didn't have the guts to say anything until now. I want to be more than just a pain in everyone's behind, and I think you do as well. You always boast that you're the deadliest thing in the air. Don't you think it's time to prove it?"

"Yeah, but I never meant doing it so far away from home that we can't sleep in our own beds afterwards."

Ruffnut sighed. "I get that. You love Berk too much to leave it. So I'm not asking you to go. I'm asking you to let me go instead."

Ruffnut's words, as earnest as she'd ever been with her brother, didn't seem to be helping reduce her brother's fear. "And if I lose you like we lost Astrid?" he said, confessing the true source of his fear. "What do I do then, Ruff? You can't promise me everything's going to be okay."

Ruffnut shook her head. This was harder than she realized it was going to be. Even after years of reciprocal torment between the two of them, she felt like she was asking her right arm to stand still for an amputation. "No, I can't. But I still have to do this. If Hiccup and Astrid can do it…"

"All right, all right." Tuffnut could only take so much touchy-feely business. "I get it. But there's one catch, sis… I'm coming with you."

Ruffnut's eyes widened. "What? Idiot, I just got done saying…"

"We're a team, sis, and that's never going to change. So if you feel this strongly about it, then you're going to need my help. That way, if you fall to your death down the road, at least I get to watch."

Two smiles emerged on two faces who normally only smiled when something was exploding dramatically. Then the craziest thing happened – Ruffnut reached out her arms and hugged her brother, who looked around helplessly while flailing his arms, unsure about what to do with them. He settled on giving Nestor a dirty look.

"I blame you for this, you know," he said. Nestor had to look away so not to show Ruffnut his widening smile.

It was Snotlout who ruined the moment by letting out a gigantic groan. "Well, that's just great. So now I have to choose between going home with Fishlegs and trying to explain all this to everyone back home, or volunteering to go with all of you."

"I'd volunteer myself," said Fishlegs, "but my parents need me to shovel the snow off our roof…"

"It's okay, guys," said Hiccup. "You two need to go back and tell my dad what's happened. You also need to take the artifact on Last Gasp away and hide it somewhere no one's going to find it."

The relived expressions on Snotlout and Fishlegs were hard to miss. Privately, Hiccup was glad Snotlout and Fishlegs hadn't decided to join their quest. Fishlegs didn't have the stomach for battle, and Snotlout was more talk than talent. They were perfectly brave when it was required and they were defending their village, but in a foreign land against obscenely powerful enemies, Hiccup wasn't certain they'd fare well.

And then there was Ruff and Tuff, who had ceased the hugging and had somehow gotten into a brand-new argument, the twins now stuck in a mutual headlock, their helmet horns grinding against each other as they hurled petty insults.

As Snotlout and Fishlegs left to mount their dragons, Nestor moved closer to Hiccup and waved a hand at the arguing Twins. "Is this actually a good idea?"

"I really don't know," said Hiccup.

"I hope zey know how to hunt," commented Lothar, his reptilian face at ease with all the insanity, as if he accepted these developments as the way humanity worked. "I have not enough jerky to go around."

* * *

_We watched Snotlout, Fishlegs, Fenrir, and Chomps disappear into a sphere of swirling light not long after the conversation ended, Proto used the T-Node mounted on his back to turn my friends into energy or dust or whatever you become when you get teleported. We waited for Proto to give us the word that they had made it safely to Last Gasp, all the while watching for our territorial Skrills to arrive any minute. Nerve-racking to say the least, and I don't think I breathed at all until we got confirmation a few minutes later that Snotlout and Fishlegs made it back in one piece. _

_I hope they'll be okay. It's not easy to be the ones left behind, even if it might save their lives._

_After the teleporting was done, Proto absorbed the artifact into itself and told us that it would fulfill its duty by keeping the T-Node safely encased in its myssteel body. Since the T-Node doesn't have enough power to be useable, I guess that's that. _

_I can't say I trust the Guardian yet, and I'm not alone. Lothar gives Proto a skeptical eye from time to time, like he expects it to try to kill at any moment. Lothar mentioned in passing how he had never met a Guardian that he didn't have to destroy eventually. I hate to say it, but I've had the same experience. Still, Nestor trusts Proto, and I trust Nestor, and I'm willing to give Proto the benefit of the doubt. _

_By the way, the Skrills never did show up again, at least not while we were at the watering hole. Thank the Gods for small favors._

_Lothar leads our formation. The group's pretty quiet right now. Nestor is asleep on top of Proto, snoring like an irritated wild boar. I'd say he deserves the rest. _

_Ruffnut and Tuffnut are behaving themselves on Barf-Belch. I think the enormity of what happened to Astrid and their decision to come with me has hit, and their usual antics are curtailed for now. I wonder if I was smart to let them come along. It probably wasn't smart, but I feel better having them around. I feel like home isn't as far away as it used to be._

_We're flying at a higher altitude now, above all that endless sand and zipping wind, a white half-moon lighting our way. It's a poor substitute for a hot sun and it's getting chilly, but I can handle chilly._

_Toothless seems in better spirits now. Night flying is his specialty, after all. Wish I could say the same. _

_I feel numb, equalized, the good feelings offsetting the bad ones. I know that I have friends willing to leave their homes with me, travel with me, fight with me. We have new allies, a destination, and my heart tells me that we'll find our missing friends in time. I have a lot to be thankful for…_

_But always there's Astrid… and…and…_

_Astrid._

_I hope you know I love you, Astrid. I wanted to build a life with you, have a family with you. You were my friend, the one that I needed when I felt insecure or defeated, the one I could count on to kick my rear when it needed kicking. You were all I needed to stay the man I am, to become the champion I need to be._

_That was all taken from us, all of it… and it drives me to the brink when I think about it._

_But here I am, doing what I know you'd want me to do. I'm finishing this, Astrid. I know there's a big battle down the road. The Alchemist is gone, but her power remains, and we have to stop those who would wield it, before they tear this world apart. For Berk, for all my friends, for __**your**__ friends, for everything we believe in, everything that's worth fighting for, we have to win._

_I still have the myssteel ring I made for you, the one I didn't get a chance to give you. I find myself taking it out of my pocket and palming it, like I'm deciding on the best time to chuck it, let the Desolation hide it away forever. Yet I always put it back… because of the dream I can't shake._

_It's not a sleeper's dream. It just a daydream, a foolish dream. It's the one where you're waiting for me farther down my path, armed with a beautiful smile and your axe strapped on your back. You're waiting for me to catch up to you, and you've been waiting a long time. _

_That's why I have to keep the ring – so I can give it to you when we meet again._

_Like I said, a foolish dream, but right now it's the only dream I have left._


	12. Four Final Details

**Chapter Eleven: Four Final Details**

With the moon covered by thick clouds and the stars all but hidden by a new storm front, the Outcast longboat found the seas far more challenging to navigate than normal. Alvin had ordered all torches doused so to keep their presence masked, forcing the navigator to work extra hard to keep them on course. The alternative was to broadcast their position to any Gunnarr patrol ships in the area, and Alvin knew they were out there in their black night boats, waiting to pounce.

Alvin stood at the bow of his ship and acted like he was fuming over his latest defeat, his men keeping a safe distance in case he took out his frustration on one of them. He still might, just to keep up appearances, but he really wasn't all that disgruntled. In fact, he thought the day's events had proven highly educational, even uplifting.

Oh, he did get thwarted yet again. No denying that. His clever plan to find the adventuring Dragon Conqueror had fallen to pieces, and his brief alliance with the steel devil had ended with the devil falling to pieces as well. Defeat was defeat, and no amount of ale or face punching would change that.

But oh, what revelations! There was more out there than dragons and dragon training. The steel devil had shown him such sights, such wondrous things. The Outlander had done him a favor, for if such a meager stick-man could gain the power of a god, so could another. What if he himself gained the same power, or what if he could find the resting place of another steel devil?

Alvin smiled in the darkness. There were indeed many roads for an ambitious Outcast like him to travel. And all roads eventually led to Berk… and his triumphant homecoming.

* * *

The torchlights of Berk cast a welcome glow over the village as Snotlout and Fishlegs approached the village harbor, but the sight of home did little to warm their damp spirits. A soft sprinkle of snow added a blinding component to the flight, but it was still more appealing than the sand-whipping breezes that existed in the Desolation, where they have left their friends.

_What's left of our friends_, Snotlout thought dejectedly.

"If we don't tell Chief Stoick about Ruff and Tuff," said Fishlegs, flying off of Fenrir's left wing, "how long do you think it'll take the village to figure out they're gone?"

"I don't know," answered Snotlout. "I'm tempted to find out."

"Are we going to tell them about Astrid?"

Snotlout's reply was to glance Fishlegs's way and shake his head noncommittally. Fishlegs had the weird pyramid artifact in his hands, fully intending on fulfilling his vow to Hiccup. The artifact had stopped all the glowing and shining shortly after they'd popped back into the air above Last Gasp. Now it looked like a simple stone carving with fancy writing all over it. Weird how such a little thing could take them halfway across the world faster than a Monstrous Nightmare could spontaneously combust.

If he could, he'd let Fishlegs handle all the responsibility garbage. He just couldn't bring himself to care. His mood was far too black for him to even feel the frost nipping at his exposed skin.

Snotlout hated the fact that he was stuck with telling Hiccup's dad about Alvin and Hiccup and steel devils and how the Twins weren't coming home any time soon… if at all. He hated the reaction Chief Stoick would have when he realized how much danger his son was in. He hated all the questions and accusations that would be thrown his way. He hated the fact that he was stuck in Berk with no squad to speak of any longer.

He hated the fact that the one girl he'd been trying to impress for years was gone… absolutely gone. He hated that most of all.

He hated Hiccup for letting it happen.

Until now, he had never had reason to question if his life had been better before Hiccup ended the Dragon War. It seemed like a no-brainer. Snotlout had Fenrir, his loyal dragon buddy. He had respect as a member of Hiccup's Dragon Squad. Those two things alone, plus his undeniably Norse physique, should've led to bigger and better things by now – glory, girlfriends, and a statue of his handsome likeness in the Great Hall.

But the glory wasn't happening. It was always Hiccup that got it. And now Hiccup was costing him friends, friends that should be staying in Berk.

It had cost him Astrid, a girl that would've seen all the great potential in him if not for Hiccup. A girl that would still be _alive_ if she hadn't run off with Hiccup.

Was his life really better with Hiccup… or was Hiccup the actual problem?

"You okay, Snotlout?" asked Fishlegs, picking up on his friend's dark mood.

"Let's just get this over with," he muttered, steering Fenrir toward Chief Stoick's home and nearly colliding with Chomps. He ignored Fishleg's feeble protests, as he always did.

Not all seeds come from plants and grow in the earth. A few are born from wonderful and wicked experiences, and they blossom in the fertile soil of the mind. Such a seed was germinated in Snotlout that day, and while much of Snotlout's attitude did improve as the long, cold days came to the village, a wicked impulse had taken root in his soul. One that lingered in his heart, yearning for further nourishment.

One that grew in the dark, of which there is plenty in the winter months of Berk.

* * *

The Desolation has no life to speak of, yet eyes were upon the group of flyers heading east, taking with them the best entertainment Valha had experienced in such a long time.

Her name wasn't really Valha. Nor was she a "she." But it had not lied to the Dragon Rider – the girl had once lived, and it had the pleasure of meeting her and knowing her. The side effect of playing a role like Valha was that it _became_ the role as thoroughly as if she had lived that person's life. It knew all her hopes, her fears, her mannerisms, her nuances. For the time being, until it deigned to return to its true form, it would think of itself as Valha and live through her perspective.

She already missed the Dragon Rider. Not the boy's presence exactly, but his perceptive mind and inquisitive nature. Humans had such incredible aspirations, such limitless potential, yet most of them saddled their minds and their lives with artificial obstacles, blocking off their imaginations for the questionable benefit of practicality and pragmatism. Most humans proved unfulfilling when she got to know them. Most were toys that were too easy to panic, too easy to break.

She found that she had grown restless in her seclusion, and her trip inside Hiccup's mind had reinforced her desire for something… different. Perhaps it was time for a change herself. The humans were waking up again, beginning to reach for the heights they once achieved eons ago. She'd seen snippets of the past rising up in the boy's mind. Necromancers and alchemists and mighty dragons the size of mountains. Great and terrible powers returning or newly born. If the pattern held up, the world might be a very entertaining place for years to come.

She'd wait a while to emerge. She had sent "eyes" elsewhere, and those "eyes" told her that a great showdown was slated to occur very shortly, one that could change the face of the planet. It wouldn't serve her to blindly walk into a typhoon when she could hunker down in her sanctum and ride it out, waiting for the waters to recede.

Once the storm was over… who knows? There would be a brave new world, perhaps, and one that would interest her greatly.

* * *

Sanctuary Storeroom – a very pedestrian name for a very pedestrian room, and it was the most boring place in the world to guard outside of a garbage dump. Not that it didn't need guarding, as it held a selection of fine gems and rare minerals organized on standing shelves, alphabetized and categorized by use and quality. A handful of the stones could buy a pauper's way into nobility in any country, which would normally make it a rich target for ninety percent of the personnel stationed on Sanctuary Island. Formers pirates and mercenaries didn't have many qualms about stealing, and it wasn't like the Alchemist would miss a few here and there.

Yet the lone guard for the room, sitting on a wood stool inside the room and next to the one door out, couldn't remember having felt this degree of dreariness before. The stack of books piled next to her stool, which contained mostly old plays and fables, had become her buffer against the relentless tediousness of her posting.

She currently had a copy of an old Greek play, "Oedipus," which was an interesting read but pretty depressing overall. She fiddled with her long black-haired ponytail absently as she read and shifted her feet to keep her legs from falling asleep, all the while hoping that some dumb ex-pirate would make a try for some garnets or emeralds or even the prized white diamond collection. Anything to break up the monotony.

He'd have to be extra dumb to try it, too. There were two well-known rumors about the Alchemist – that she enchanted every gem in her arsenal with some kind of tracking magic so that she could easily locate any lost or stolen gems, and that her punishment for theft of her property involved the thief losing every body part that had touched the stolen objects. The guard had never heard of anyone actually getting punished like that, but at the same time she had never heard of anyone daring to steal from the Alchemist. Rumor or not, the fear kept the gems safe and her job dull.

Failing the appearance of a criminal mind, the next best thing would be for the Alchemist to come back from her latest outing and talk some sense into the base lieutenant about his posting choices. The guard was wasting away in this dusty warehouse room, unable to see or hear or learn much about the Alchemist's grand plan. The base lieutenant clearly had an "old boys club" mentality because he routinely assigned women to support roles like the kitchen or custodial work, though only when the Alchemist was out and about. Women didn't get combat assignments or construction duties, not with this guy in charge.

At least she managed to pull guard duty, which had to be a slight acknowledgment of her growing reputation among the ranks of the Alchemist's troops (or more likely, an acknowledgement that she was a pretty girl and that men belonging to the "old boy's club" liked doing favors for the pretty ones). She had more than proven herself an able sailor, a capable sword-fighter, and a generally intelligent individual right from the beginning, back six months ago when the half-troll named Norom had come to her island settlement on a recruitment drive.

The big lug had marched into her fishing village with a squad of sneering men and declared that he needed twenty able bodies before he left. Volunteers would be great, but twenty bodies were twenty bodies regardless of how motivated they were. Times had been tough in her settlement and many of the younger men had decided to try their chances with the Alchemist rather than suffer the bleak prospects of continuing poverty. Norom got eighteen men to sign up, but he needed two more. Norom implemented a lottery for the two remaining spots, and to the young woman's horror one of the names picked was her father's.

The thought of her father, who was more farmer than fighter even in his younger days, becoming caught up in some aspiring warlord's army, the thought that she might never see him again, prompted her to make a challenge to the half-troll. If she could beat two of his men in fair combat, she would join his army as the last two slots, and her father would stay behind. After a lengthy bit of gut-busting laughter, Norom agreed to the challenge, probably because he thought it would be entertaining.

It had been, but not for the reasons he expected. She succeeded in taking down two grown men twice her size in an epic bout of sparring that impressed Norom so much he honored their agreement and left with his quota one off.

The young woman had not been so thrilled. She kissed her crying parents goodbye, telling them she would be okay, that it wasn't like she hadn't been through this kind of thing before, and that she would be back home before they could even miss her.

She'd lied to them. The Alchemist wasn't a flash-in-the-pan warlord. She was something else, something far more dangerous. She took her time, solidified her forces, kept to the shadows while gathering her strength – talents that demonstrated a keen, patient mind. It was a trait most would-be conquerors didn't share.

The guard had seen enough of the projects nearing completion on Sanctuary Island to know the Alchemist was about to make a big move, and the guard knew she didn't know anywhere near what she needed to if she was going to…

A strange whine materialized in the room, surprising the guard into dropping her book to the stone floor. Her pulse quickened as she tried in vain to identify the sound. The Storeroom was typically as silent as the grave, save for the slight hum of the glow-crystals that kept the room in a subdued light. There were no alarms to speak of, either.

She listened intently. The whine was growing louder and escalating in tone. It reminded her of a pinwheel her father made for her when she was a child, how it would spin in the breeze so fast that it gave off a high-pitched birdcall. It sounded like that – something spinning faster and faster. But there was no wind here, and nothing that could spin around in the wind.

Wondering if the Gods had heard her complain and had sent an extra-dumb criminal into the storeroom, she jumped off the stool and cautiously walked the rows of shelving, glancing about for the source of the whine. She drew her one weapon, a rusty dagger that any self-respecting warrior would have thrown in the forge. She hoped she wouldn't need it.

As the whine grew louder, she deduced that it was coming from the rear of the room, where there were spare shelves and empty space and almost no gems on display. It was possible someone was trying to break through the rear wall using one of the Alchemist's inventions, though that was the hard way to go, as there was a mountain on the other side of the wall. There were constructions devices designed to move large quantities of minerals, but they were kept under close supervision and…

As soon as she cleared the shelves and stood staring at the source of the enigmatic whine, she realized she had it all wrong. There was no criminal act in process here. She had dismissed the other purpose of the Storeroom – to store the one special trinket that stood out of place among the colored gems and stones surrounding it. The whine, and a now-noticeable puke-yellow glow, was emitting from it, the mysterious symbols adorning its sides caked with energy that intensified with each passing second.

The guard had never understood why this pArcticular artifact had been stored here until now. There were other rooms with other useless knick-knacks and museum pieces, failed experiments and wrecked prototypes from the Alchemist's workshop that she liked to keep around for sentimentality or as a reminder of past failures. But this object, which went by the name of T-Node, had been placed on a granite pedestal and treated like _the_ most important object in the room. No thievery consequences for stealing this artifact – it was straight up death for anyone taking it without permission.

The guard had thought it a very personal piece of the Alchemist's history. It might still be. But it was also a very active piece of history, and it looked like it was about to…

The guard was treated to the twin assault of light and force, the hammer blow of a concussive sphere of yellow energy striking out from the artifact and plowing into everything in the room. She was shoved back down the row she had emerged from, a shower of gems and torn shelving accompanying her. She curled into the fetal position and covered her head with her hands as the shower, pelting her with stone and wood, the room going from neat-and-tidy to catastrophic mess in three heartbeats.

She saw little during the brief unnatural assault, and it stopped as quickly as it began. She lifted her head out from under her arms, feeling punched up a bit but with no serious pain. A cloud of dust now enveloped the room, obscuring most of the damage. Two sets of shelves had collapsed against each other instead of on her, leaving her covered in broken splinters, loose gems, and a fine layer of dust. She was free to move, and she quickly crawled out from under the leaning shelves in case they decided to collapse altogether.

Standing up, she resisted the impulse to pocket the loose gems sliding off her body. She then noticed that what she thought was a dust cloud shimmered more like steam. It felt humid all of a sudden, like a fog bank had been deposited in the storeroom. The whine was gone, and though she couldn't see the T-Node she figured that she would have seen the glow had it still been active. It was silent now, and that could only be a good thing.

She glanced about the room in astonishment. Completely wrecked, and on her watch. She cringed at the conversation she was about to have with the base lieutenant…

Someone was coughing.

Startled, she froze in place and listened carefully. It hadn't been her imagination. Back toward the T-Node, there was a human-sounding cough. In fact, it sounded like a pair of coughs. Maybe this really _was_ a criminal act and someone had caused the T-Node to activate so to mask their thievery.

The guard searched for her dagger, but it had escaped her hand during the magic assault and was presumably buried in the rubble. No matter. She'd take care of these scoundrels mono-e-mono.

She crunched past the rubble as fast as she dared, slipping a couple of times on loose shelving that had grown wet from the indoor fog. In the thick blanket of mist, she had trouble picking out the would-be thieves until she was right on top of them. They were both on the ground, coughing and groaning like a pair of sickly plague victims. They must have gotten caught in the blast and were in a bad shape for it.

"That'll teach you to mess with ancient artifacts," said the guard, reaching down to hoist up the nearest thief for a closer inspection.

"A lesson I know very well already," came the reply from the "thief," coughing once as she got her feet under her.

The guard gasped and released the woman immediately. Even with her clothes drenched and torn, her leather harness burnt and smoking, and her face smudged with grime, there was no mistaking the strong, stern face of the Alchemist.

At a loss over this dramatic entrance, the guard simply stood and gaped. The Alchemist cleared her throat as she scanned the room, getting her bearings. The mist began to clear as it spread out through the room and into the hallway, and now the guard could see more of the Alchemist's harness and the three crystals built into it. All three were cracked and smoldering, as if they had burst from within. The guard didn't know gems could do that.

"Is this the Sanctuary Storeroom?" asked the Alchemist.

Still in shock, the guard managed to say yes. The Alchemist took this as good news as she proceeded to take off her ruined harness and survey the damage. "Quite the mess. Still, any landing you can walk away from, right?"

"What?" the guard asked dumbly.

"A phrase from a long time ago. Do you have a name, soldier?"

"Heather," said the guard. "I was stationed in this room when your T-Node… exploded."

"Tell me, has the _Zenith_ arrived here yet?"

"The _Zenith_? The last I heard, it was with you."

"I'll take that as a no. Can you tell me the date?"

Heather told her, eliciting a grim nod from the Alchemist. "Three days. If the _Zenith_ proceeds here at full speed, we should have another four days before it arrives. Now, what about Dark Star?"

"Your dragon? I haven't heard…"

"She will arrive soon." The Alchemist bent down, plucked up a ruby-like stone at her feet, and inspected it like a jeweler might inspect a stone for imperfections. Then she placed it against a vacant spot on her armband, as if measuring it for future insertion.

The echoes of running feet came to Heather's ears. It was about time that someone showed up. It wasn't like rooms exploded every day. Her attention then settled on the other figure sprawled on the ground, her features obscured by the slowly dispersing mist. She assumed the barely-moving figure was a she due to the blond ponytail showing through the steam, and she coughed on occasion so she was clearly alive…

Blond ponytail.

Heather's pulse, having finally slowed to a casual rate, found a reason to speed up again. It couldn't be _her, _could it?

Then the mist faded a little more, and Heather saw the girl's pretty face, and she felt a blast from her past take her in the gut, as disorienting as getting hit by a half-troll.

The Alchemist saw her reaction, though she must have misunderstood the reason for it, as she didn't ask any questions when she began to climb around the rubble, seeking the door. She did give out an order, which Heather barely heard above the pounding of her own heart.

"Take our guest to a room. A nice room, but not too nice. Make sure it is secure – our guest will not be happy when she wakes up. Keep her there until I say otherwise. For now, I have other matters to address. There's been a snag in my plans, but only a snag. We have time enough to prepare… and then continue."

**Yes, To Be Continued…**

**Final Note: **Yes, Astrid's alive. Shocking, right?

I originally intended to not even mention Astrid's survival (along with the Alchemist) until the beginning of The World Needs Champions, but I realized that I would be keeping my readers cruelly in the dark for a whole year after I Bring The Thunder. I couldn't do it. I like you guys too much.

See you again this summer.


End file.
